Looks Like She’s One Of Today’s 10,000!

I regularly catch a bus from a stop that is nearest to a big, international hotel. On this day, a bus is just pulling up and I notice a man in a suit, desperate scrolling his phone. I recognise that he is trying to work out if this is the right bus, and I know the bus will almost certainly be gone by the time he does.

Me: “Where are you going?”

Man: “Heathrow Airport.”

Me: “Ah…”

I furrow my brow, because though Heathrow is only about 3 miles away, there is no direct route, and I am trying to work out which is the best way.

Man: “I’ve been told to catch the 490 bus.”

Me: “Ah, yes, then this is your bus. You’ll need to get off it two stops after I get off, and the 490 leaves from the same bus stop.”

Kudos to whoever suggested this route; while it’s not the most direct or fastest, it is the simplest and the cheapest. An older woman at the bus stop has also overheard.

Woman: “Don’t worry, I will show him where to get off.”

He sits beside her, and they start chatting.

Woman: “Where are you from?”

Man: “Brazil. Rio de Janeiro.”

Woman: “Where’s that?”

Man: “South America.”

Woman: “So you are American?”

Man: *Kindly.* “Sort of.”

Woman: *To me, apologetically.* “We just didn’t learn any of this stuff in school. I had to learn from my children and grandchildren.”

And the two of them fall into a discussion, her asking smart but uninformed questions “So you speak Spanish?”, and when I get off the bus, he’s drawn a sketch of South America, and is giving her a short history of European colonisation. She is listening, rapt.

I was happy to witness this, and a little sad that she didn’t have the education she deserved, though she was making up for it now, at every opportunity.