(In Jordan. To and from Jerash). Hello, my name is Ishmael. You want to go to Jerash? At this time of the day? OK, no problem, no problem. You want to visit craft store for souvenirs? You have enough souvenirs. OK. No problem. Did you know Ismael was related to Ibrahim in the Bible? It is an ancient name. I live just outside Amman. Look at all this countryside. In 1967 all these market gardens and this little valley was home to a million Palestinians displaced by the war. You want to look at that castle? OK, we are going to Jerash. No problem. Here (in Jerash) are all sorts of things to look at and I will show you where to start and will wait until you finish looking. Please don’t hurry. I am happy to wait. Did you enjoy that? It is a special place isn’t it? I brought my wife up here two months ago just to remind ourselves how special it is. When you live here you can forget. I have nine children. I am very lucky to have all good children. And very lucky that they can all do the things they want without worrying about their future or living like those Palestinians had to in 1967. The peace with Israel was the best thing that has happened to our country. My two eldest daughters have been in university. One studied biology and is now getting a job. The other is in her first year at university. All my other children are in school. The youngest is twelve. Two of my children were twins. Two of my daughters are married and each has two girls. (Laughing) I am a grandfather. It is a good thing and I like it very much. Do you mind if we pull over and buy fruit? Thankyou. Here, you will like these figs I have bought for you. It is Ramadan and I cannot eat until sundown but please, have these figs. Let me wash them first with this bottled water. And please, take this rhumahn (phon: = pomegranate). My wife will be happy with these eggplants and fruit, because all the family get together at Ramadan and they eat a lot. It is cheaper to buy fruit and vegetables on the side of the road than to buy in Amman. Thankyou for your talking. I have two nieces in Wollongong. One day I will visit Australia too.

I never really liked the Shah but I made lots of noise about the Ayatollah. I did not want him running the country but to be honest I was not expecting him to come into power. Suddenly I found myself having to leave Iran for safety reasons. I think we actually say, for political reasons. I have some family in Iran even today so I have to be careful about what I say. Still. Sadly I don’t think I can ever travel back to Iran. It is hard to leave your roots and even though I have been here more than ten years now I would like to touch the ground where I was born. But I have my wife and children here and we are free to say what we think and worship how we want. I love that Shia, Sunni, Jew and Christian can live in one place and not fight. Even a follower of Isa (Jesus) can live next to a follower of the Prophet and not feel that they have to fight. Indeed, I am a Sunni and we can all live together in peace as God instructed us all to do. It’s just a shame that I had to come to the other side of the world to actually do that. I would prefer that I could do that in the land I was born.

My family have been here for years. I came here fifteen years ago after all my brothers and sisters pressured me to come and be a family again. But initially I was reluctant to do so since I could not speak English. I could speak six other languages but not English. I was living in France at the time, teaching Ancient History. I love Ancient History. If I had my time over again I would love to sit for hours and talk about Ancient History. If you are not careful we will drive for hours and I will talk about Ancient History. Mesopotamia mainly. And recently I have been doing a lot of study about Egypt. We think we are clever with our technologies but those ancient civilisations were capable of some amazing engineering. Did you know there are no cranes available today that could lift the blocks found in the Pyramids out to the distance they need to be placed in those structures?

I came out from France once and decided that it was too hard not knowing English. So I went back to France and took lessons, often travelling to England for short visits to practise the language. When I thought I was ready I came out and tried living in Sydney. There are lots of people from Mauritius in Sydney. But I was not very comfortable there so moved to Brisbane and set up here with my family. They were very pleased with that. Now I love the place and don’t want to live anywhere else. I don’t really follow the football but I am very happy when Brisbane wins so I think that means I have made this place my home.

The conversation started out in a humourous way, something like this: “Good morning where would you like to go?” “I have no idea.” He laughs. “Actually I need to get to the new Westpac (bank) HQ, do you know where that is?” “Yes. Actually I had a passenger once who asked me to take him home but he had no idea where home was. We drove and drove until he recognised places. I eventually got him home but it was a big fare. You meet some strange people in cabs. But not all cabbies are the same you know. Not every one would go to the trouble of helping someone like that. And not every cabbie has a sense of humour – they would kick him out. Mind you, often people get in and try and be funny with us about where we are to take them.”

That of course prompted me to tell him about some of the cabbies I meet. I told him about the Kurd. He laughed and said “I am an Iraqi. But I came here 25 years ago.I am a draftsman. I started out here in Sydney as a cabbie, only until I could get a drafting job.But I was able to turn this into a career.I love it. I came here because I am a Christian, not a Moslem. With only 2% of the population in Iraq Christian it was hard to make a living. But making a living here in the cabs can be up and down. You have to stick with it to do well. Mind you, never trust a cabbie when he tells you how much he earns. If he earns $100 he will say he has earned $70. If he has earned $20 he will tell you he has earned $100. It is a very competitive business and no one will tell you, or the tax office exactly what they earn. But especially we don’t want to tell each other. The competition becomes worse when some days you can pay your bills, other days you have to wait to pay your bills, and even some days you have to pay to be a cabbie! But I do well and feed my family and love what I do. I am very glad I never went and found a drafting job, I would have to shave every day and wear a suit. Phew.” (and proceeds to scratch a five o’clock salt and pepper shadow that has not been shaved for three or four days).

That tattoo? That! I think I made a mistake with that. No, it is not the Great Wall of China. When I hold it out you can see it is a castle (on his inner forearm). It is an old crumbling castle near where I was born. I was born in Serbia, can’t you tell from my accent? No, probably not, we all sound the same from that part of the world. Even after eleven years here and being a “dinky di” Aussie. OK, maybe I am not yet a “dinky di” Aussie (laughs) but I want my two children to be. I want them to grow up in a place where there is no hate, where neighbours can be neighbours. The trouble with where I was born is that there is more than 400 years of hate and it is hard to live with love in a place that is so infested with hate. So I came here.

I had a girl in my cab recently who admired the colours of my tattoo. She liked all the green shrubbery around the castle walls. It is still fresh and bright since I have only had it for a year. On the soft skin of my arm it was painful to have done. But this girl pulled up her dress and showed me a beautiful angel (pronounced “anne-gel”) tattooed up the side of her body from her hips, up over her waist onto her ribs. But it was half finished because she was skinny and the tattoo was too painful to complete on her ribs. You see some strange things in the cabs. But this an-gel was beautiful, even if it was not finished. But I am still not sure if my castle tattoo was a mistake. At least it was not as painful as if I had had it tattooed on my ribs. (Shakes his head as he remembers, or imagines).

So you are on a mission from God? You want to go to heaven or hell? (laughs) Sydney? Is that heaven or hell? Yes, I agree, probably heaven. I have been in Melbourne for more than ten years mate. I like it here. Sydney is nice. Went there once in 1999. Hard to drive around. A mess. I can get you to the airport at 8.27pm. I can go faster but only if you give me $500.00 to pay for the fines. 8.27 it will be. I came out here with my family when I was a young boy. We stayed in some refugee camps but not for long. We came here in 1995. Palestine had just got its independence – or so it thought. There was lots of building and construction going on. But it was not safe. My parents wanted to bring us up in safe place. All I knew about Australia was that there were lots of sheep. I thought it was going to be a big sheep farm and thought we would be seeing lots of sheep. I was very surprised to land in a city and not see any sheep for many years. I have not been back to Palestine. All my family are here. Why would I go to a place I do not know and which is not safe and not really independent? I have all I need here.

(and yes, we were delivered to the airport at 8.27 precisely)

I came here ten years ago as a refugee. I am very lonely since I have no family here. But I have a good life in Sydney. When I was in Tehran I earned one dollar a day One dollar!! But it bought me everything I need although my life was very simple. But I am not sure if I have been successful here in Sydney. What is success? A friend at university has gone on to be a professor at the university. I earn more in one day than he earns in one month. He loves being a professor and lives OK. He is successful in terms of status. I earn more but I only drive a taxi. Because I earn more am I more successful? I do not know. Now I eanr $100 a day and it is not enough. $200 a day and it is not enough. I started at 7am two days ago, and yesterday and made good money. I normally start at 5am. Today I started at 7am and have only made enough to cover the petrol. I should not be so lazy and go back to the 5am start. I am hoping to go back to Tehran to visit my family. I have a girlfriend here but I need to have my family around me. That is important. I visited Iran many years ago but had to go there under another name. The UN helped me do that. Then I went back with my real name and nothing happened. So maybe it is OK to go back and visit family. I am lucky to have my PR (permanent residency). I hope to become a citizen very soon. (Laughs) – how good that will be. My girlfriend is a Catholic. I am a Muslim. How about that!? You are born to your religion so you cannot change that. I cannot become a Christian and she cannot become a Muslim. Conversions from one to the other are never true. You have to be true to yourself. I was sad when I became a PR because many people lied about who they are to become a PR. Two Muslims I know f*#@*^ many women here then said they were Muslims on their applications. They are not Muslims when they behave like that. I could not live or lie like that. My PR application said everything about me and it was true. You have to live true.

“I have a wife and son. I am very proud of my son. He has worked very hard at university and in this second year of his study he has three distinctions. He is doing better than me in this crazy taxi adventure. I was born in Indonesia but I am part of the Chinese minority. It was hard where we lived, to make a living. So when I was eight my father took me to Singapore. He was buying textiles for making clothes but he could not sell them in Singapore. He had to ship them into Singapore and then on sell them to Jakarta. He was always busy and always worried about his textiles not arriving or being stolen. But we were never able to fit into Singapore. We were viewed as migrants and not really welcome. So my father sent me to England to finish my schooling. I went to a college in Liverpool. I was very lucky but what a terrible town. And I could not stay in England. I could not live in Singapore either. I had to go back to Indonesia, where my Liverpool certificate meant nothing. I could not get any work in Indonesia. One day I heard the Australian Minister for Immigration say “if you want to come to Australia just knock on the front door” He was talking about the boat people who thought they could come in the back door. So I knocked on the front door and to my surprise four months later I and my family were allowed in. Now I drive a taxi by day and I clean by night. My wife does not drive so we live close to everything we need, including the university my son attends. He is very clever and I am proud of him. But I should have bought a taxi plate when I had a chance – they were only $160,000 then. I missed an opportunity. Now I am 42 and I drive and clean. But my boy is doing well. I am very lucky and have nothing to fear.”

Taxi drivers in this city are almost always foreign nationals – if not by citizenship then at least by birth. That makes for some interesting stories and I usually take the opportunity when riding with them to find out a bit about their backgrounds and their families.

One stands out and I am thinking about him today as I see news that Saddam has been hanged – and as we anticipate long queues at midnight of the New Year. He was a young Kurd who had been drafted into the Iraq Army (unusual) and placed in front line positions in 1991, and was one of the lucky ones to be captured by coalition forces. For which he was eventually thankful, but not before he spent time in a POW camp in the Saudi desert, some time in a camp in Kuwait and then returned to his home town in Iraq. Which by now had been cleared of all Kurds and he found himself on the run. He tried to leave Iraq and headed for Turkey but was picked up by coalition troops in northern Iraq and returned home. Deciding Turkey was not a safe exit route he decided to make a run for Lebanon but was ignorant of how well that border was stitched up – by both sides. He was turned away by Iraqi soldiers who did not trip to his Kurdish ethnicity. So he made a run for Saudi but got picked up, interned and returned to Iraq. His final run was out through Afghanistan and Pakistan and to Malaysia via that now infamous route. After a year in a Malaysian detention centre (very unusual) he was accepted into Australia as a genuine refugee applicant but still had to spend time in one of our centres. I can’t recall for how long.

And he is one part of the taxi driver tableau that makes me reserve judgement when we all want to grump about what sort of service we get from our cabs. Sometimes I just want to say “Forget the service, listen to the story!!”