Uber Wisdom

uber-

/ˈo͞obər/

1. denoting an outstanding or supreme example of a particular kind of person or thing.

Not being a city girl, I am unaccustomed to "ubering." Thus when I get in a car with a stranger for a ride in a strange city I am a bit apprehensive. So all I know to do is say hello and how are you. And that usually leads to a ride-long conversation which is very very interesting.

In the last two days I have been ubering a lot, so I have picked up lots of tidbits and interesting stories. There was the Kurdish driver who wanted me to see the pictures of dead children from his homeland and asked, "Why, why, why do they do this?"

And then there were a couple of Ethiopian drivers whose English was limited but had both lived in this country for awhile and were thankful to be here.

But it was the driver from Cameroon who really got my attention yesterday. We talked about the beautiful houses along the road as he drove me to my friend's house, but he commented that though they were beautiful you needed to have "deep pockets" to live in them. And he said, "How much space does anyone really need?"

Then he told me a story about picking up a customer in an exclusive neighborhood in Potomac, Maryland. He said the house was "huge, really huge" and they had eight cars in the driveway..."why would they need an uber?"

The customer, he said, was "a disheveled, unkempt young woman who looked like she was a maid or something. I couldn't figure it out, so I started talking to her," and he really didn't discover much except that just she and her mother lived there and the father was never home. But he noticed that she had a ball of what looked like putty in her hand that she squeezed and massage on the whole ride. "She seemed to have some mental problems."

and then my new friend from Cameroon said, "If I came back in this life, I would want to do just what I am doing and be just who I am. I am happy with my life. So many people are not happy even if they have lots of money and very very big houses."

Such a supreme example of a genuinely happy person.