It wasn’t a lesson wasted on me. I was so happy to learn Radji’s name. It amazed me what a difference it made knowing a person’s name. No wonder we all had names. It wasn’t just so that we could tell each other apart; a name gave someone an identity, a whole personality. It was something we each owned, and no one could take it away from us. If someone refused to recognize our name, they were in a way trying to deny our right to exist. I found that fascinating. We went down a few more streets and I enjoyed looking in the shop windows because the shops were so different from shops in Canada, where most things were now sold in huge department stores and malls. Here you would find little shops that sold just one thing, such as hoses, or vacuum cleaners, or notebooks, or spices. The spice shops were wonderful. You always knew when you were approaching a spice shop because you would smell it first, although sometimes you couldn’t because of the garbage and open sewers that created some pretty awful smells.
