not a bad day

Yesterday’s events reminded me what an international city this is. For lunch I had wanton noodles with a friend from China then later I walked to Little India to have an Indian dinner with a friend from the UK and he had brought along a girl, Kabi, from Ghana, Africa he met here two weeks ago. After stuffing ourselves we decided to walk around the corner to an Australian pub for a beer. Little India was absolutely packed as it always in on a Sunday since its most of the workers’ only day off and Kabi was amazed because she said she had never seen so many Indians before. The Australian pub was packed because it happened that two Scottish bands were playing there as part of a St. Andrew’s Day celebration unbeknownst to us - these were real Braveheart looking Scottish guys dressed in kilts, playing bagpipes and pounding their drums as hard as they could (I would never have thought 5 drummers and one bagpipe player could be a band). Not a bad day.

A few side notes-
I had never met anyone from Ghana before. I really don’t know anything about it and when she said she had come to Singapore because she was getting away from some trouble back home I didn’t pry. She wanted to know if I had a girlfriend or a wife and couldn’t believe I didn’t. I figured she was looking to marry a westerner here and my UK friend said her sister was living in KL with her Australian husband. After she asked if I was married she also couldn’t believe I didn’t have any children either when she asked that. When I asked her how many children I should have by my age she said at least ten or twenty! She seemed serious, too. My UK friend later told me Ghana must be a very male dominated society -earlier in the night she was talking with her sister on the phone and she put him on the line. The sister was thanking him for being nice to Kabi and said she hoped he would allow Kabi to visit her in KL! As if she would need his permission to travel. Trying to keep from laughing in half shock he had replied “oh, yes, of course. Anytime.”