The Red Bus and I

Its been two months now since I came to the UK, I started to feel more confident though I had my fair share of cultural shock on how people feel and behave, I also had my share of people calling me names or thinking that I’m a sort of threat to their lives or their well being by just looking at the way I dress. One day I was going to the local mosque, as I teach teanagers Arabic and Qur’an, as I was setting on the bus a young man got on the bus checked his oyster card but he didn’t have enough credit and then looked for money in his pocket but their was 30 p shortage then everyone was looking at him with a look that means “ c’mon get off the bus” though it seemed that he was in a rush and he was disappointed he got off the bus. At this point I had a flash back and pictured myelf in a bus in Egypt where everyone in the bus would offer to give the young man the 30 ps and welcome him to the sweatty crammed bus. I was also walking with my siter in law after Jummuah prayers in the street and we passed by a café and some drunk men kept calling at us and shouting “ Oy, Muslim girls, get a life” and then an Englih lady rushed in from behind and held her hand to us and shoke my hand and said, “What happened there was not nice, we are not all like that”, I really appreciated her gesture and it affected me deeply. These two incidents left me with contardicted feelings, I felt on the fissrt exeprience that people here lack the sense of communication and they suffer from great deal of selfishness, which in my humble opinion will make all this civilization futile, what’s the point of clean nice buses with people live only for themselve, I feel like some one can get a way with murder just becaue everyon is so busy thinking only about themelves. The other experience toke me from the generlization trap and made me feel that after all, london is like any other part of the world where you can find good people and bad ones as well. - Silly Ellie