Daily Archives: March 9, 2009

What a difference one letter can make:  I was standing at one of the typical cookies, sweets, soda and juice stalls in a small village somewhere in the center of India.  As in all such villages we passed, white faces were seldom seen, so I attracted quite a bit of friendly attention. An oldish gentleman wandered over to me.  I could tell from his expression of concentration that he was digging out the few English words he knew, in order to speak to me.  As I always did when we walked around in villages, I turned to him with a smile and said hello.  At this, his face lit up and he asked “Where from?”  To which I replied, “America.”  Well, his smile broadened to enable me to count all the teeth remaining in his mouth, crinkling his face into a myriad of wrinkles, his eyes disappearing into slits of delight.  Oh, he was happy.  He rocked back on his heels, clasped his hands together, thought hard and then came out with one word of huge significance.  Looking at me with great joy, he slowly enunciated “Osama” and then chuckled with glee.  He was consumed with pleasure that he’d been able to say this to me. I, of course, was a little taken aback.  But I was only stunned for the briefest moment.  I waggled my head with shared pleasure and, smiling broadly, queried, “Obama??”  “Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” he replied and began to cackle joyfully.  “Obama!!”  We nodded happily at each other for a minute, repeating “Obama” and smiling warmly.  And then he wandered off.

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