Taxi Talk

Yesterday I visited San Francisco on business, just for the day. I flew into Oakland (across the bay from San Francisco) and took a taxi over to the city — roughly a 45 minute trip.

There was (surprisingly!) no line for the cabs at the airport, and only one cab in queue. I hopped in, said hello and told the driver where I was headed. He smiled very engagingly, lighting up his very weathered face, and said “Today is your lucky day; you’ve got the best cab!”. When I asked why that was so, he told me (with great pride) all about his natural gas powered cab, how it would allow us to use the carpool lane (as apparently other cabs cannot), and how it would let us go over the bridge without paying the $3 toll.

That was the start of a very interesting conversation about, of all things, Eritrea — where this fellow hailed from. He wanted to be called “Gary", an Americanization of his Eritrean name. That name had at least 8 syllables and involved several sounds I wasn’t at all sure I could duplicate, so I was just fine with Gary!

Gary is 63 years old, and most of his life has lived outside of Eritrea. He fled the country when he was 23 (in 1966), afraid for his life, as he had been part of an irregular militia fighting for independence (Eritrea was then part of Ethiopia). For the next 32 years, he wandered all over the world, living in places as diverse as Italy, the Phillipines, and South Africa. He listed off an amazing number of occupations, from construction worker to maritime radio officer to ambulance paramedic — and when I questioned him about the few things I could verify, he clearly knew what he was talking about. Not a dummy, Gary the taxi driver.

In 1993, Gary’s world changed, much for the better — his homeland finally won independence from Ethiopia. He returned home (for the first time since he’d fled), reunited with his family (he’d been able to keep up an intermittent correspondence, so he knew they were alive — but that’s about it), and met a woman whom he married the next year. Now with a family (his new wife had three small children; her first husband was killed in the war with Ethiopia), Gary needed to find some security. He’d never been to the United States, but he was certain that was the right place for his new family to settle — and in 1997 he and his family traveled to New York, and took a train across the country to San Francisco, where an old militia buddy of his had settled and had offered to help him out. With the help of his friend and a network of Eritreans already her, Gary scraped together enough borrowed money to buy a cab, and he’s been driving one ever since.

I asked Gary if moving to America had lived up to his expectations. That question got a huge smile, and an “Oh, yes!”.

We also talked for a bit about the political situation in the Middle East, both in Eritrea and in other countries. His views are well-informed, and (to me) unexpectedly balanced. Gary is Muslim, but doesn’t appear to be anywhere near the radical side of that religion. For example, he doesn’t reflexively blame the Jews for all the ills of the region — though he was perfectly willing to criticize certain of Israel’s policies (he is disturbed by the wall, for instance — though he has no trouble understanding why they’d build it). Gary is also very willing to criticize the Islamic governments, with Sudan and Syria getting the brunt of his ire. The one area where I’d call his views a little unbalanced is on Eritrea itself — despite their political problems (such as elections being apparently indefinitely postponed, and an ongoing corruption problem), he is unabashedly a supporter of Eritrea’s independent goverment. It’s very hard for him to criticize it at all — it’s just too wonderful for him to have such a government, compared with being a part of Ethiopia…

One part of our discussion that particularly surprised me was his glowing descriptions of the capital city of Asmara. He declares it to be the rival of Beirut, Lebanon, in sophistication and nightlife. I’ve certainly never heard of Asmara in that context, but try googling “Asmara Nightlife” — you’ll see that I’m just ignorant <smile>.

That was a most interesting and enjoyable cab ride, and actually seemed way too short; our intense conversation was rudely cut off by our arrival at my destination. Unfortunately the cab driver on the ride back wasn’t nearly as engaging — I have stumps in my yard that are more companionable, and with superior conversational skills…