Two days ago, one of our new confreres who is from Nigeria asked me for some help. He had to urgently send scanned copies of his visa document by post and thereby miss his Friday lectures at the university. Miss his classes for posting a letter? It was Thursday night and all he had to do was scan the document, put it in an envelope and post it. Why miss next day's class for this? I asked him why not do it now (Thursday night) and he looked at me strangely. "Is it possible?", he asked me? "Possible?" I was not sure what was so difficult about posting a letter. Anyway, I said, "Let's do it now" and we set out at the task.
We scanned the document, found an envelope in the office (writing/printing the address on the envelope, was another weird episode - another time, maybe), affixed a stamp and then I told him now he can go and post it. The postbox is just 15 paces from our main door and I told him where exactly it is. Envelope in hand, he looked at me with a blank look saying, 'What postbox?" So I took him, walked up to the postbox and showed him the postbox. He beamed from ear to ear. As we turned back home, I asked him how do they post something in Nigeria. Only then, the whole drama that was happening for the past 45 minutes made sense to me. He said in Nigeria, they take the letter to the post office (during working hours), pay the postman and he does the rest. They don't have postboxes!! He had never seen a postbox before, leave alone post a letter by himself.
Sometimes we try to explain the intricacies of life and find ourselves still 'misunderstood'; what we do not realize is that the 'misunderstanding' is not about the complex part of the process, but something very 'simple' which I am aware of and have taken for granted, but is totally new or completely unknown to the other!
We scanned the document, found an envelope in the office (writing/printing the address on the envelope, was another weird episode - another time, maybe), affixed a stamp and then I told him now he can go and post it. The postbox is just 15 paces from our main door and I told him where exactly it is. Envelope in hand, he looked at me with a blank look saying, 'What postbox?" So I took him, walked up to the postbox and showed him the postbox. He beamed from ear to ear. As we turned back home, I asked him how do they post something in Nigeria. Only then, the whole drama that was happening for the past 45 minutes made sense to me. He said in Nigeria, they take the letter to the post office (during working hours), pay the postman and he does the rest. They don't have postboxes!! He had never seen a postbox before, leave alone post a letter by himself.
Sometimes we try to explain the intricacies of life and find ourselves still 'misunderstood'; what we do not realize is that the 'misunderstanding' is not about the complex part of the process, but something very 'simple' which I am aware of and have taken for granted, but is totally new or completely unknown to the other!
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