the one with friendship

My journey to other countries had taught me one great thing. Friendship. It's not about the color, race or culture. It may be about common grounds but there's more to it.

My first year abroad was a disaster or so I thought it was. When I was first introduced to my first foreign officemate Rudolph, a South African, I figuratively didn't know where to start and how to open conversations. Good thing he smokes though, coz on the first day at work, we shared a cup and a joint of reds. And I brought with me something new to the table, my Marlboro Reds Softpack. He said let me see that. Then he said, why not the fliptop one? I replied, I never got to like the taste of fliptops. Softpacks satisfy my craving for destroying my precious air bags. Then we laughed at it. And then everything just kept on going.

The conversation went a long way, took us even a while to notice that we have exceeded the 15 minute break limit. Music was definitely a hitter, and we hit it off from there. The following days, he brought some of his collections of mp3's as I did. We chattered about why Kurt Cobain shot his brains out. Why Anthony Keidis of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers didn't attend the funeral of his former bandmate who OD'd on heroin. And we even made a list of the must haves that we didn't have during that time. The list contained Sonic Death Monkeys, The Clash, and Sonic Youth.

Then the office and break chatters went on a level higher. Kicking it off to a roadtrip to Bahrain. How did that go: BLAST! Except for the drugs, we had girls, booze and violence rolled into one. One hell of a roadtrip. Huraah!

Shortly after that, Rudolph had to leave the company for some greener pasteurs. We exchanged mails and contacts. I wished him luck on his new journey and gave him a pair of sneakers for him to use as he ventures yet another journey. He left me a book entitled, Danny Boy by Joan Goodwin and it had a dedication on it that said:

"Marky, friendship is an involuntary reflex. Thanks for the reflexes."

I read the book later on. And I dropped my jaws. The book said a lot about us. Our escapades, though shortlived, were off the hook. To us, race didn't matter. Age didn't matter. Culture didn't matter.