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.
Funny how we stereotype taxi drivers as being capable of nothing more than driving a taxi – and sometimes not even that! But he speaks 7 languages and is an ancient history scholar….
Absolutely. He was one driver I could have spent all day with.