Taxi Driver

As I tend to do when in a city and taking a taxi ride, I embarked on a lovely conversation on Friday night in Philadelphia with our driver named Said. Now, I know that looks like the word "said," but it is actually pronounced "Sayid." We actually discussed the pronunciation and phonetics of his name in our conversation.

Getting in the car, Said seemed skeptical to talk to me. Even when I asked his name, he kind of smirked shyly, clearly taken off-guard by my openness and immediate friendliness. But he divulged anyway. As arduous as that proved to be, so was the next question I asked him. "Where are you from?" "Philadelphia." "No, where are you from originally?" (Said was clearly African, with a strong accent). "Africa." "Where in Africa?" "West Africa." "That's not a country...what country are you from?" "Ivory Coast." What a circuitous way of finding out where someone is from.
This openness led to much talk on Ivory Coast, our conversation ranging from west Africa's leaders--tyrannical, corrupt, and aggressive--to the people in Ivory Coast--extremely poor. When I asked, that since Ivory Coast is a democratic nation, how come the people don't elect a leader who would do better for them? Said's response was that the leaders go around and pressure, almost bribe, the townspeople with food or money in order to get their vote. In my heart, I wanted the townspeople to be strong and elect someone who could actually implement a positive change for them. But, when I thought about it, I realized if I were in that economic situation, I would probably be the same way as they.

Said, who has been in this country for about ten years, expressed a certain sense of joy and accomplishment at Barack Obama's historic nomination as the first African-American major party presidential candidate. We talked about the people in Kenya, a country near to Ivory Coast, who were rejoicing at this victory, as Said seemed to have done in his own indistinct sense as well. We had both known, through news reports, that Barack had an uncle from Kenya whose name was Said Obama, which is how I knew how to spell my driver's name correctly, as opposed to the more Muslim (I suppose) way of spelling Sayid.

Driving through Manayunk at this point (our destination was Roxborough, the next town over, at my friend Kim's apartment), it occurred to me that I stumbled upon an extremely bright, well-informed African-American taxi driver from Ivory Coast. I decided to ask Said how he got so educated. Apparently, he dropped out of school many years ago, not progressing past elementary school, it seemed, and got his information primarily from the news. I was dually impressed. But, I was a little disappointed, and I feel like the scholarly world was losing out on this bright mind, so I implored him to in some way go to school, whether it was community college or GED, some kind of schooling. I told him it was the teacher in me that wanted his bright mind educated. I don't know if I was being pretentious at this point--I really was sincere the whole time--but I really felt like the world would be a better place, especially with his opinions on politics and what is wrong in Africa, if Said contributed to the greater well-being through his academics as opposed to his motor vehicle skills. I left the cab feeling accomplished, whether Said takes my advice or not, that I at least put the thought into his head, and had a wonderfully intelligent conversation with a complete stranger and a completely opposite person to myself.