"Honest, It's true...!" But Is It?

This is a true life story...honest, it happened to me on a bus travelling between Manchester and Rochdale.

It was a cool sunday morning. Some folks were off to church, others in bed, some just on their way to and from work and others still just out to visit friends/family or to see sights. Tooe arly for shopping i daresay.

There were others too on the bus who like me, were just out minding their own business.

The bus was about a quater full and after a few minutes i noticed that i was the only colored person on board. Not that it mattered. However the conversation that was to ensue between a father, his son and wife were to make that issue very important.

It all started when the son looked up from the newspaper he had been sharing with his sister and asked his father innocently

"Dad? which country is Tal Ben Haim from?''

Simple enough, i thought... Isr...

"South Africa" came the reply from the father smugly.

I shuddered. I thought everybody knew that Tal Ben Haim is not from Africa; not by any distance. In fact he is an Isreali soccer international. I thought that had ended the misinformation when the son asked again.

"Where is South Africa?''

"Africa" came the reply from the father . That in itself was correct and would have earned him full marks except that the very next minute, he went and put his foot right in his mouth " You know that country where you have monkeys flying from tree to tree!''

I shuddered inwardly. Not that there are no monkeys in South Africa but to think that was used to describe a country was to say the least unbelievable. Then the man looked straight at me.

Then Mrs Wife came into the picture

She nudged Mr Husband in the rib cage and speaking just under her breathe said "Careful.." and gestured with her head at me, as if saying there is one of them in close by...dont say too much. "Thank God" i thought madam would, at least, put him at rest but Mr Husband was not to be deterred.

He looked again straight at me and told his wife "But that is true"

That ended the conversation because Mrs Wife simply smiled apologetically at me and i decided to switch my mind to other things.

I felt sorry not for the man; he perhaps is too old to change his opinion. I also reckoned that he had not seen too much of the world. Perhaps the only colored people he had ever come across are those who clean the streets and carry out menial jobs; with dignity i must add, in the United Kingdom. He also might have had his opinion clouded by the many television programmes showing the malnourished in Sudan and the chaos in Congo DR etc.

My sadness however was directed at the son. I assume his age to be about eight to ten. To grow up in the shadow of a father who fed him wrong ideas and information about other races is most unfortunate.

Do you have similar experiences?