Stranger #6

Stranger #6

What a beautiful day to meet a stranger, but like other days, it's been an experience. A good one though! This man was standing by himself leaning on a bench on Roosevelt Blvd. So, here I go.

When I first saw him, he was wearing sunglasses (really nice ones actually) and you couldnt see his eyes at all because of the dark tint. I went up to him, introduced myself and put out my hand to shake his. I began to tell him about my project and why I became interested. After I got done my whole damn spiel (which sounded great today by the way), he responds with "I dont speak English." AH! All I could think to myself was, is this some kind of joke? I honestly thought he just didnt want to give me the time of day. I didnt walk away though, because he never walked away from me. There is something about this project, which in lack of better words, has given me some balls.

As we stood there, he was smiling, because lets face it, he had no clue what to say. I was kind of puzzled myself because he had no idea what I was saying either! He attempted to talk, but he really just didnt know how to communicate with me. He wasnt lying when he told me that he couldnt speak English (which in turn, made me feel like a jerk about assuming that he didnt want to talk to me.) I tried to break down what I was saying, and at one point I started to act out what I was trying to say. I did this for a good 5 minutes! I felt like I was playing a random ass game of Charades or something. It's crazy, but it kinda worked. What's so funny to me is, I probably looked insane to those driving up the Blvd, or even crazier to the people walking by us on one of the busiest intersections in Philadelphia. I just didnt care.

So, here we are, standing on the side of the BLVD. We werent making any progress, but I was actually havng fun. Then, he reached into his coat pocket. Youre probably wondering why in the world he went into his pocket, as was I at the time. Well, he pulled out his cellphone! As I stood there, quiet as a mouse, he told me in broken english that his daughter was on her way to pick him up. He just kept smiling. I couldnt, but I didnt even want to walk away. Even though he couldnt communicate with me very well, I knew he was somewhat interested in what I was trying to tell him. He tried calling her for what felt like a century as I stood there. Im not sure if he didnt know how to work his cellphone, but he even started to blurt out her digits to me when he wasnt able to dial her number. After he got past the "2-6-7", his phone started ringing. It was his daughter! He started talking in Albanian, and handed me his phone. I got on the phone, and all over again, told her my purpose. She was such a sweetheart. She asked me to wait and that she was coming from Franklin Mills, but would be where we are in a couple mins. At this point, I didnt know what the outcome was going to be, but deep down, I was silently cracking up at myself. Who the hell does this?

A couple minutes later, his daughter pulled up. As she got out of her car, I continued to say Hi and again, repeat why I was doing this. She seemed like she loved the idea, and passed along what I was saying to her dad. I was watching them the entire time and when she got to the end, he had the biggest, most inviting smile on his face ever! She played translator between us, and I just told her that I wanted to know his name and anything he wanted to tell me about himself, literally anything he wanted to say. When she began to convey to him what I had told her, he pulled out his I.D to show me his name and confirm his identity. It was so cute!

Meet Ilirjan Lamaj. Ilirjan is 61 (his birthday was yesterday actually!) from Albania and has been here for 4 years. His daughter who is a citizen, petitioned and brought her father to the United States. Illrjan and his daughters whole family is back in Albania and he goes to visit them once a year. Illrjan is disabled and cant work because he has "an extremely bad case of diabetes" and is "insulin dependent." He also has prostate cancer. It's been hard, but Illrjan says that he has a senior bus pass and spends his days at an Albanian coffee shop on Castor and Tyson.

Today was a little random to say the least, but again, this is why I love this. It made my entire day that Ilirjan went out of his way to get his daughter to translate, and was able to get across to me what he wanted me to know about himself. Not only did it show me that people still care, but I was able to meet a new face today.

Keep following my journey!