Bangladesh buddy

I needed to buy a bus ticket to get from Kuhlna – a fairly small town, back to the capital, Dhaka, to take my flight home. I didn’t want to miss my flight, so buying a ticket in advance was important to me. When I entered the ticket office, it was dark and swelteringly hot – the power was out and they couldn’t issue any tickets. I decided to wait for the power to come back on, so I sat down and thumbed through some travel agency leaflets I’d brought with me. I had been trying (unsuccessfully) to arrange a daytrip to a mangrove forest. I tried phoning the numbers on a couple of the leaflets, but they couldn’t understand a word I was saying! Then a guy a few meters away, who was also waiting for the power to come on, asked me what I was doing offered to speak to them for me. He introduced himself as Rahib, borrowed my phone and made several negotiations for me. He even insisted on coming with me to the travel agency to act as a translator, and took my phone number to check that I was safe whilst on the tour (apparently 1 person a day in the forest is eaten by a tiger!). I was really grateful as I wouldn’t have been able to arrange the tour on my own!

And that’s where I thought the story would end. When I was about to get on my bus to Dhaka, Rahib asked me “so when are you going to come back to Bangladesh?” And as if he could see the answer in my face, he said, “we’re never going to see each other again, are we?” He said, “I doubt I’ll ever come to London… although I did try to come to the UK once!” Then he told me how he had tried to apply for a UK visa by paying a college that he didn’t realise was bogus. He’d been told that if he paid an agency an exorbitant fee, it would be plain sailing for him to study in the UK. He told me his visa had been rejected and asked me what to do. So I told him how to apply for a visa legitimately and, a few months later, got a message from him saying “hi, I’m in London!” We arranged to meet up for a meal, had a laugh about our chance encounter in Bangladesh and are now close friends.

Submitted by Stephann