(1066) Asking for direction

After attending a morning prayer meeting, my husband dropped me in an LRT station.

While looking at the consolidated public train map of the entire Klang valley, a dark skin man came and asked me something. He is probably a Bangladeshi man who came and works in my country. I retreated a few steps and looked around. Thank goodness there is a male rail policeman twenty steps away. The foreign worker handed me his hand phone and I could see that it is a photo of a station name 8 stations away.

The train came, I entered the train way behind so that I could exit where the escalator would be in my destination station. The guest worker came in and looked intently at the rail map and the blinking red light. I remember what it was like when I was a college student taking the subway for the very first time in Washington D.C. Everything was a blur and I was overwhelmed. Today, before I got down, I counted how many stations more for him. A moment prior to stepping out the train I told him loudly that there are 4 more stations, putting up four fingers in case he is not familiar with counting in Malay.

He was very puzzled that I was kind of scared of him. He is probably a brave and hard-working man who dares to venture far to earn a living. I am, however, a born and bred city person who is cautious, suspicious and usually do not talk to any stranger in a public area. It was bright day light, but a very quiet time in the train station.