A friend of mine told me about Hamid the taxi. He said you can go anywhere for 2KD in Kuwait by texting Hamid. I started this and found he has about 10 drivers and I really like the service. You text to a number to "pick me up at _____ and drop me off at _____" and generally in about 15 minutes you are in the car riding. Most all of the drivers are from India or Pakistan and Hamid does a good job choosing who can drive for him and they are pleasant. Sometimes other taxis stop for me and I say "are you Hamid?"... they say no and drive on. The other day I sent my text and a guy pulled up in about 10 minutes and I said again "are you Hamid?". He said yes. I got in and we took off. About a minute later I received a text and Hamid told me the black dodge charger was there to pick me up; problem was I was in a white car. I got home fine and for the same rate. I apologized to Hamid via text.
Next morning I texted again and in 10 minutes I was picked up. He introduced himself to me; his name was really Hamid; he owned the company and was from India. We had a great conversation about Kuwait and he told me about his family and how he started his business. I apologized about yesterday again. He said to me "you know, next time just say to them "who sent you"? and see if they say Hamid". Duh, thinking about what he said.
He then told me there are so many people that do not know some of the languages and the last thing you ever want to do is just act like you know and say yes or nod your head. (a few days earlier a friend of mine took me for coffee and he wanted to prove the same point; he asked the waiter could he have the pink coffee and the waiter said yes....)
Hamid said his father told him a story as a young boy about culture and languages... said a man was living in country where he could not speak the language of the locals. He knew he needed to learn so he went and told his new boss he was willing to go for training. The new boss said "don't worry about it.... you are ok with using 3 words: Yes, No and Alright. Use them in that order and generally you will be fine. A few days goes by and the man goes for a walk. He sits on a park bench and it is a little cool outside. A few blocks away another man commits a murder. The police start to chase him and the bad guy runs through the park and the police dogs are after him. The bad guys removes his jacket on the run and throws it and it lands near the man on the bench. The bad guys continues running away. The man on the bench thinks wow, this is nice, the man knew I was cold and gave me a jacket and puts it on. Moments later the police dogs and cops surround him. The cops are local and ask him in the local language if it was him that committed the murder? The man remembers what to do and says "yes". The police take him to jail and he is all confused. Next they line up a a judge to see him. The judge now says in the local language "I understand you said you committed the murder; I want to make sure now if you are going to change your story and say you did not do it? "No" was the reply... The judge cannot believe how easy this case has gone so moves on to the sentencing of the murder and says in the local language "well, you admitted when we caught you and have not changed your story; therefore I must sentence you to hanging"..... the man simply replied "alright"......
You can bet now I say "who sent you"...... and yes, working on a few phrases....
0 comments:
Post a Comment