This semester I teach Monday and Tuesday nights on top of working a full day job. I’m always committed to public transit, but couldn’t take getting home at midnight 2 nights in a row with getting up for work. So the past few weeks I’ve been splurging on the $9-10 taxicab home.
Sometimes the drivers are talking on their cellphones so I just stare out the window. But on the weeknight cab rides…and the occasional weekend one, we chat.
10/8/07 Brian called after class and said that a lot of people were meeting at the Omni Hotel to hang out after Brian Kuhlmann’s lecture at the Apple Store. So I got a cab at Michigan and Harrison.
This cab driver was from Nigeria. He asked what I was doing at Columbia and I said I was teaching. We talked photography and he asked for pointers. He told me his favorite images from his country, which were now just memories since he hasn’t been back home for so long.
10/26/07 Caught at Belmont and Damen. I am out with my friends celebrating Lynette’s new job. I arrived to Mi Tierra via 2 busses. On the way home, as I got on the Belmont bus, I realized my second bus (Damen) didn’t run that late, so I took a cab the rest of the way.
This driver was from Jordan. He began talking about his family and his oldest son who has Autism. He gave me his cellphone so I could see pictures of his oldest son with his brother, son with his wife during Ramadan. His son goes to a special school and the moved to a different neighborhood so he could go to it. I ask him what his son’s special gift is. He is sort of taken aback by this……pauses……..then says his son is a whiz at technology. He was on the Internet one day and figured out how to find and watch Tom and Jerry….and he is only 9. He says his son is so very sweet, gentle, and loves babies….stroking their heads in the nicest way.
10/29/07 Caught at Congress and State. It is after Mon. night’s class and I’m having a hard time finding a cab. There must be some event going on downtown. Finally one pulls over and asks if I’m going somewhere downtown. I say, no, but its really quick on the highway. He says he guesses he can do one last fare then go home. Where is home? Over by UIC. Its fast. No worries.
The news is on the radio and he says he’s from Iran. Tehran. I ask if he gets to go back and visit. He says he used to once every year but not anymore, it is too difficult flying for 16 hours with the layover in Europe. I talk about my trips to the West Bank last year and we exchange our layover times and airports. He asks if I speak some Arabic…..”schwae schwae….not very much…actually I’m not even sure I used that phrase correctly. I laugh. We talk about the “Secrets” exhibition and what it was like to be in the West Bank with the artists and what it will be like to show it here.
He says, “You know, I used to take classes at Columbia.” Me: “Oh really? I teach there. Photography. Taught tonight.” Him: “I was a filmmaker and took film classes. Lighting and writing down in the 1104 building. I wanted to be a filmmaker. But now I paint. I figured out that because of politics I couldn’t get money. I always wanted to make a documentary. But now I feel like I can’t say anything just because of where I’m from and what they assume. Its all politics now.”
We talk about how despite politics…everyone has a story, on all sides of the coin. We talk about the exhibition some more. He says he’ll come to see it in March.
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