.

It is, and Life have given me many proofs of that in the past (and some pretty amazing, too!).

Today was no different.

A couple of months back, our department recruited a new co-worker. The very first day, I thought ”Geez, his last name sounds familiar”, but I didn’t say anything about it.

This morning, after working with a colleague for a while, he was starting his training with me. To show interest (and to please my curiosity), I asked him what the origin of his name was. His first answer was ”Africa”, quickly followed by ”my family lives in Guinea”.

NO WAY!!?!

If you’ve followed The Cove for a while, you might know that I have lived in Guinea for five years a long time ago. I knew he didn’t doubt that (why would I lie about having lived in another country?) but I had a feeling he didn’t think I really knew his home country.

So I asked him if he knew about Kamsar, and he did. ”That’s where I lived.” But I still felt he didn’t get it. He continued ”it is special that I know about that place (Kamsar), it’s such a small town…”

”I know, right? Nothing like Kindia (one of Guinea’s major cities)…”

That’s when it hit him. ”Oh my, you DO know Guinea!!”

Yes, I do. We went on sharing about the different ethnic groups, and the indigenous languages, and what probably is the biggest difference between West African and North American life… The pace. I told him how I missed the very laid back pace of Western Africa, and he agreed with a giggle. After nine years in Québec, he obviously missed it too.

Before getting back to the training (because we do live in North America, and here bosses expect that you actually work during working hours – I know, silly), I pushed my luck.

”What would you say, if I said foté?”

This time, he laughed out loud.

Foté is the Sussu word for ”white (person)”. Word that we heard a whole lot when we traveled in the countryside. Because caucasian people weren’t a usual sight, to say the least. And even in remote villages, where children didn’t speak French, they were taught the phrase ”Fotés, donnez les bonbons!!” (literally ”White people, give us candies!”).

And I told my trainee how we used to stop in every other village, to see the children run away because they probably didn’t even know what they were saying. And were scared of the odd white people.

Needless to say that I was not excited about giving yet another training, but this unexpected bond made the task much more agreable, even on day one.

It is a small world after all…