A journey beyond prejudice

It was a fateful evening, the kind where the sky begins to burn orange as the sun reluctantly bids farewell to the day. I had to board a bus heading west of the Nile, a land draped in beauty and teeming with the warmth of its people. I was bound for an appointment—an interview that promised the possibility of a life-changing opportunity. However, before I could even begin to contemplate the magnitude of what awaited me, the universe threw me into an experience worth telling—a tale etched in the raw pages of our fractured humanity. In a world increasingly gripped by the gnashing teeth of racism, sectarianism, and nepotism, moments like these stand as quiet reminders of who we are—and who we could be.

I stood at the bus stop, the minutes trickling by like sand through an hourglass. Time seemed to mock me, stretching out endlessly. With a weary sigh, I turned to the gentleman beside me, a man whose face bore the hardened lines of patience.

“Excuse me, sir,” I inquired, “is there any bus coming soon?”

He tilted his head slightly and replied, “Yes, there’s one bus heading your way. It should arrive shortly, but…”—and here he hesitated, as if reluctant to say what came next—“it might cost you a bit more than usual.”

With no alternatives in sight, I shrugged off the notion of the “higher price” and resolved to take my chances. After all, when fate knocks at the door, you don’t haggle over the fare. As if on cue, the bus rolled into view, its exterior a glossy shade of green, sleek and polished as though it belonged to some exclusive class of travelers. For a brief moment, pride swelled within me—the absurd pride of belonging, if only temporarily, to something finer than the ordinary. Yet life, I’d soon learn, has its own way of reminding us of the shallowness of appearances.

I paid for my ticket hastily, climbing aboard with the eagerness of someone clutching onto a golden ticket. Inside, the bus was nearly empty, its seats arranged in solemn rows like sentinels waiting to serve. A few passengers were scattered here and there, their heads turned to the windows, perhaps lost in dreams or distant musings. My eyes settled on a fellow African man, a brother with skin darker than the midnight sky—a tone I saw as kin, familiar and grounding. Seeing the empty seat beside him, I approached with a hopeful smile, the kind of smile that says, "Here we are, strangers yet connected.”

But hope is a fragile thing. He looked at me with a face I can only describe as a mosaic of mixed emotions—sadness, distrust, perhaps a touch of shame. Before I could utter a word, he raised his hand in a subtle yet firm gesture, the universal sign for "Not here. Not with me." For a moment, the air seemed to thin, my heart stumbling as if missing a step. I stood there, caught between confusion and disappointment, as though I’d just been handed a rejection letter I hadn’t applied for.

He motioned me elsewhere—toward an Indian gentleman seated nearby, a man whose complexion was as fair as morning cream. I glanced over hesitantly, unsure of what to expect. But there, like a lighthouse cutting through fog, the Indian man’s face lit up with a genuine smile.

“It’s okay, brother,” he said softly, “You don’t have to worry. Sit here.”

Relief washed over me, and I slid into the seat beside him, grateful not only for his hospitality but for the kindness that wrapped around me like a warm blanket. We struck up a conversation almost instantly. I can’t tell you what we talked about—perhaps it was about the weather, the beauty of the Nile, or the strange timing of buses—but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the atmosphere, alive and electric, pulsing with the glow of human connection.

And yet, beneath the laughter and the pleasant exchanges, my heart bore a quiet ache. The sting of the rejection from my fellow African lingered, like a splinter lodged just below the skin. It wasn’t the refusal itself that hurt; it was the symbolism of it. How could it be that my own brother—someone whose roots I imagined intertwined with mine—had turned me away while a stranger of another background embraced me without question?

As we approached a supermarket stop where food was being offered, I asked only for water, my thoughts spinning like a wheel that refused to halt. There, amidst the jumbled musings of my mind, I stumbled upon a truth as profound as it was simple: we are far more than the color of our skin, the origins of our birth, or the differences we let divide us.

The heart knows no tribe, no race, no creed. It beats with a rhythm common to all mankind, a silent song of shared humanity. How foolish, then, to judge a man by the shade of his skin when the blood that flows beneath it is the same crimson hue we all carry.

That night, as the bus rolled on through the winding roads west of the Nile, I found myself quietly marveling at the paradox of the journey. From rejection sprang acceptance; from disappointment, understanding. Life, it seems, is a masterful storyteller, weaving lessons into the fabric of our days when we least expect them.

In the end, we are not defined by the boundaries others set for us. We are defined by the bridges we choose to build. And as the bus roared toward its destination, I knew that I had crossed a bridge that evening—one that led not just to a physical place, but to a deeper understanding of what it means to truly see, embrace, and love one another.

Because at the core of it all, we are human first—and that, more than anything, is what binds us together.