4 ms·
Years ago, I found myself in an exceedingly remote backwater of Central Africa for work; it was fairly safe to state that I was the only person within a hundred
by lb1lf 8y ago
Years ago, I found myself in an exceedingly remote backwater of Central Africa for work; it was fairly safe to state that I was the only person within a hundred mile radius who wasn’t born there.
As I stop at an intersection, some guy I’ve never seen before walks up to the car and excitedly tells me «Mr. $MY_NAME, you must phone home immediately!»
Puzzled (and worried!) I asked him how he knew my name - turned out the local radio station had announced that if anyone saw the tall, white guy - tell him to phone home!
No less worried, I thanked him and drove off to find a phone.
Turned out my grandmother (bless her!) had decided to give me a call just to chat; she’d rung up my employer asking how to get hold of me; he’d called the local contractor, they had realized I was out and about and after a few more delegations, all involved assumed it was urgent and pushed the big, red button.
When I finally got someone at home on the line, half panicked, it felt absurd when my father just said «Oh, your grandmother wondered how you were doing down there; I’ll fetch her...»
My grandmother? To her dying day, she couldn’t make up her mind whether this was the most embarrassing or most hilarious experience of her life - the day she made all of Owando look out for her grandson...
Probably both.
- bobochan 8y agoAwesome! I lived in Bangui, Central African Republic, for a few years and used to listen to "Radio Rural" every day (mostly for the music, but also to improve my Sango). One of the highlights of daily programming were the lists of messages that people were trying to get to relatives in distant villages. It was a pretty steady stream about the health of family members and requests for different things. Asking someone to find the "tall, white guy" would not have been out of place!