Replying to LO30665 --
Greetings At,
At said:
>It was a general custom among all the Bantu nations of South Africa that
>when a stranger visit you, you share your food with the stranger without
>asking anything in return.
My comment:
This reminds me.
Once I was travelling in the Syrian mountains between Lebanon and Turkey
with a friend. These are rural areas with a low population. On one of
these roads a stone struck the car from underneath and made a big hole in
the oil tank. All of the oil leaked out and we were stuck. Luckily this
happened right outside a garage in a small village of farms. It was
probably the only one for miles and miles and miles.
The garage was run by a group of beduin brothers and they said they would
fix it, but it would take time because they would have to remove the
entire engine to get the oil tank out.
It turned out to be some 8 hours of work, and it was early in the evening
by the time they were done. At this point we wanted to pay them and leave,
but the oldest said "no way! You are our guests, you must come to our
house have dinner and stay over for tonight." We refused, since we had a
wedding to go to. He said "if you don't I will make a hole in you oil tank
again!" We laughed and agreed to come at least for dinner. They went to
some fish ponds they had build beside the local river and caught us a
fresh fish. We had a delicious meal and finally ended up staying over
night anyway in their simple but comfortable house.
During our conversations the youngest of the 4 brothers expressed an
interest in going outside Syria to find work. Our advice was "don't,"
because what more would he need? They had food, they had shelter. No
luxury but nothing to complain about either. Why leave this peaceful,
stressless life for the promise of a few dollars? As you said At, it is a
problem of treasuremaps being distributed.
Terje
--"Terje A. Tonsberg" <tatonsberg@hotmail.com>
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