Meeting an old friend

Today, after about 2.5 years, we met our friend, who has just landed in Canada from UAE ( Sharja). For those who don't know the geography of the UAE's cities, Sharja is only about 5 kilometers away from Dubai. So when living in Dubai, we met our friend and his wife a lot, specially during the holly Ramadhan which is well-celebrated over there and Sharja has taken a lead in the ceremonies. The cities practically don't sleep during the month.

We first met this friend of ours back in the university where we were all studying computer engineering. After graduation we didn't have much news about him but when moving to Dubai, we were told that he is married and lives in Sharja.

Now, I was students' deputy for a long term and knew everybody and everybody knew me. I was even a recognized person in other groups. However during the course of years, I've earned some weight and lost a little ( just a little ) of the hair.

One day, while walking in City Centre ( Dubai's most popular shopping mall ) I bumped into this old friend. He too had changed a lot, more or less in the same way as me! Joyfully, I went to him and shouted " Hey man , how are you? Long time no see...."

One simple sentence: He didn't recognize me! He stood there, awkwardly trying to remember, however unsuccessful; he didn't know who I was. Well, he remembered all right, but the delay cost him a lot: Now every mutual friend knows about this and today again, we laughed at it and refreshed our nice memories.

They have a two year old boy now. The interesting thing is that the boy only speaks Armenian, his mom and dad's ethnic language! No Farsi, No English , Just Armenian! From one point of view, this is good and even admirable: Otherwise he probably wouldn't learn this language but how about socializing with other kids? Learning at school? Communicating with teachers? I know that he'll learn English quickly. But until then, he'll only be able to talk to his mom and dad and probably a few Armenians live here.

There should be a balance.