We were chatting with a neighbor today. He needed some info on a roofer we’d used. Can’t remember the sequence of discussion, but some people just like to ramble and from amongst his ramblings I gleaned the following:
He’s originally from Ohio and likes the homogeneity of that part of the country. He prefers to live among people who look the same. He does not relish the multi-linguisticity, multi-ethnicity, and frequent appearance of turbans that occurs in many parts of Maryland such as near D.C. and Columbia. When he eats out, he prefers to patronize the same place repeatedly, provided they do not use any seasonings he would consider exotic. When a friend bragged to him about being on a safari in Kenya he did not understand what there was to brag about or why anyone would want to be there. He can’t see the point of a 50 foot long living room furnished with 4 wide-screen LCD tvs.
We agree on one of those points--and I’ll give you a hint--it comes near the end of the paragraph.
This was an interesting juxtaposition to the other notable personality which impacted my day. It was the first day of third-semester Spanish at the Community College. When my new prof, Thomas (Tomás) Edison entered the classroom, I smiled almost from the get-go. He was funny. He was smart. He was enthusiastic. And when he described (en Español) how much fun it was to leave the homogeneity of Southern Indiana (where most of his education happened) to immerse himself in the relative diversity of the Mid-Atlantic, he won me over as a teacher.
I mean absolutely no disrespect to the first individual mentioned in this entry. He implied, and I inferred, no animosity toward people of varying ethnicities, it was just that his personal comfort zone was sameness. But how much more delighted I was by the African-american teacher, encouraging us to seek pov-expanding experiences, and look for opportunities to employ new languages.
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