Mahabir Pun and Dhananjaya’s journey to the USA was not without adventure. Imagine two young men who had never been out of their country traveling thousands of miles to a country they only knew from reading and talking to others. They traveled by way of Bangkok and Seattle, finally arriving in Denver where they were to make a connection to Kearney, Nebraska. Mahabir admitted his lack of practice with conversational English had gotten him into some precarious situations. Mahabir described some of his mis-adventures along the way and one in particular made me smile because it underscores how the differences in cultural norms between countries can cause the worst and the best of outcomes:

I wonder if Mahabir missed his Himalayan mountains while in the flatlands of the midwest?

“In Denver airport, we could not find our luggage and tried to find it everywhere. However, we could not find it. Finally we found the airline counter and told them that we were late because we were trying to find our baggage. The airline people told that the plane had already left for Kearney and our baggage was already sent. It happened because we did not know that the airline transfers the baggage to connecting flight by themselves to the last destination and that we are not required to collect our baggage to put on the connecting flight. It was 11 pm at Denver airport and we had no idea what to do. We asked the airline people what we could do. They were so kind for us. They provided us a hotel that day and  put us on next day’s flight to Kearney.”

Have you ever been in a jam and had a total stranger help you? Share your story with my readers. I recall one time when my husband and I were stranded at the Miami airport with broken ribs and an angelic American Airlines staffer secured a flight to NYC on Super Bowl weekend during a blizzard. Join me next week and read about Mahabir’s first few weeks in Kearney.