A chance Encounter

By: Gilbert Ramsay

In Edinburgh which is about an hour from the Scottish city where I live -there is a restaurant called The Nile Valley which serves Sudanese food. It”s a charming place.The brightly paonted exterior goes some way to cheering the Scottish weather, which is often raining or grey.The interior is simple and homely, but the place is always busy.people can’t seem to get enough of the home cooking style dishes on offer-Mulekhta,bamiya, aswad as well as spicy Sudanese coffee.When I can go there which isn’t as often as I would like.. Sime years ago,I found my self attending a big conference in Franscisco.

Any one will tell you abour how pleasant that city is and so it proved but to be honest the whole thing went in a rush and I was glad when the time came to go hone..I stepped into a taxi for the air port.. The drivet put on a Jazz station and I immediately liked him for it. It seemed just a little out of the ordinary. As he drove we made some small talk,and I studied his face.He was a black man, abd his accent was Amerucan, with only a slight tinge of foreignness- if that at all but there was something about his feature that seemed striking and distinctive.Eventually,I summouned up courage to ask him a question Excuse me, but by any chance Are you Ethiopian? He smiled.yes, he said But actually,,ididn”t grow up in Ethiopiia ,Igrew up in Sudan .That is a coincidence .I said. I lived for a short while in a part of Sudan called Gedaref where there are many Ethiopians.

Yes, indeed he smiled. I know people in Gedaref.Where is it you lie now? I told him that I lived in Scotland.Oh really, he said my best friend ended up in Scotland.He has a restaurant there .It” called the Nile Valley .Sometimes the world seems very small.