Extra: Gossip on the Bus

My roommate and I were down south in a city that I was making plans to move to.  After having met with the boss of my future company and house looking we still had a few hours before our flight back.  I said I wanted to get to know my way around town a little better.  One of the best ways to accomplish this is to hop on a bus, ride it the end stop, get off and come back, or switch to another bus. 

As we got on a new bus at the first stop, our plan was to move towards the back and get a good window seat were hopefully we could sit undisturbed ( if you sit near the front it is only polite to give your seat up to an elderly person when they get on, but if you sit in the back, normally someone has already offered them a chair before they get back that far).  The drive saw us get on and was surprised when we asked him, in YOU,  a few questions about the route.  He tried to convince us to sit up front, right behind him so that we could talk the whole time.  We politely declined and moved on back.  The bus quickly filled up and my roommate and I became the more popular than a zoo attraction.  Any time a person got on the bus the driver would inform them that there were foreigner who could speak Uyghur at the back. 

All our fellow public transportation mates started peppering us with questions.  “Where are you from?” “How long have your lived here?”  “Do you speak our language fluently?” .  As we drove through town more and more people climbed aboard.  The bus was buzzing with various versions of the answers we were giving to the simple questions.  The Bus driver was apparently sitting up front entertaining new arrivals with his own version of our story.  He hadn’t actually got to ask us directly, but he had heard enough murmuring to have a few facts, the rest he could just make up. 

As the bus drew near to the last stop and the crowds had greatly thinned out, one young girl was able to make her way back to sit with us.  “Your story is very interesting”  she said.  “The driver told me your parents and YOU, that is why you can speak the language, but you were born in Canada and that is why your skin is white”.  I couldn’t help thinking to myself “oh dear, if the simple facts of who I am and where I am from can get so manipulated in the repeat telling of them.  However will we make sure that the gospel is communicated clearly”.