By chance I found these old photos in my shoebox (Yeah...I kept my collection of old photographs in shoeboxes!) Agree, the photos look old and the colors faded too as they were taken during my varsity days in mid-1980s.
Make you think the location is somewhere in hot Africa, what with the umbrella and permed hair adding to suspense? Omnigosh...I looked so paiseh!
Well...seeing the photos, my mind flashed back through the time tunnel to my undergraduate days at Gallaudet University in Washington D.C. To make a long story short: It was a very enriching experience both educationally and culturally, the chance to find the inner-self in you, the... the... list goes on...!
A rose among the thorns: Shan, Lindsay, Stephanie and yours trulyAll of us attended Gallaudet university at the same time. While I am in touch with Shan and Hakeem via instant messaging occasionally, Lindsay and I have lost contact for about 20 years. I shot him a teasing e-mail recently. I don't know exactly his email address hence a teaser email! But knowing Lindsay's fullname and where he worked, I was able to hazard a guess!
My email to him was like this:
Don: Don's here just testing if you are reachable via this thought-out e-mail address!
Five days later...:
Lindsay: Yo Don, What a pleasant surprise to hear from you? I am elated to be honest. Miss you man and think about you from time to time when folks who know you bring your name up once in a while.
The rest is history! Excommunicado no more!
....and Hakeem (How I wish his last name ia Olajuwon...hint...hint...)Shan was my old schoolmate at Penang's FSD. He attended Gallaudet University a year later after me. He is now teaching at a mainstreaming middle school in Virginia. Lindsay, who hailed from South Africa and idolised Nelson Mandela even when Mandela was still in jail at that time, is a big shot at our alma mater. Hakeem, a Nigerian, is an Auditor with the District of Columbia government. I am blur about Stephanie, but she is alive and well! (Hi, Stephanie, if you are reading this, shot me an e-mail will you?)
Shan and I usually liked to mix with the African students. Some of my best friends are from Africa! They were a bunch of funny people, able to conjure up humorous anecdotes out of thin air! Never a day was I with them that bored me, either on the dance floor (they loved to dance non-stop with the music blaring full volume!), on the soccer field (they are skilful players and formed the majority of the varsity soccer team), or sitting around a round table discussing politics (they have a knack for self-expression on anything politics)!
Most of all, I enjoyed being in their company simply because communication was a two-way process and their impeccably command of the English language was a plus. Very Queen English-like! What not...they read Shakespeares as part of the high school syllabus! Socialising with them developed my mind to be able to think critically and to put that thoughts in written forms!
There was one scenario during one hot summer day in June, 1981. We were doing our summer course homework on grassy ground under a tree behind Gallaudet and Alice Cogswell statue. Lindsay appeared to struggle with his Geometry and I explained the concept but not answer the question. An hour or so later, we were hungry so we decided to head for the nearby KFC outlet on Florida Avenue. Halfway towards the outlet, my synthetic rubber slippers snapped and I could not proceed any further without taking off the snapped sandals. But the concrete pavement was so hot I could not walk barefoot either. Lindsay lent me his oversized sandals and he walked barefoot (he used to be barefoot back in South Africa) all the way to KFC with amusement stares from diners inside. From then on, Lindsay became one of my best buddy at Gally!
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