I arrived in Sydney for my School of Social Entrepreneurs class Tuesday night before the Wednesday class. I was scheduled to take the bus to my hotel but it appeared I arrived 45 minutes earlier than expected. Instead of waiting, I decided I might go by taxi. I rarely go by taxi. Meter-phobia. That's probably it. I really can't relax during a taxi ride watching that meter in its relentless pursuit of making me poor. I think I've had nightmares of arriving at my destination in taxi to discover the meter demanded $50,000!
But I decided, this night, to take the chance. I got in and to my surprise I couldn't even see that black box (more like a black hole, to me!). To my further surprise the taxi driver was friendly. The usually niceties: "Where you from?", "How was your flight?", "What are you doing in Sydney?". I told him: I'm part of a team of people who in the first year of the School for Social Entrepreneurs. This he wanted to talk about. So I told him, in the 7 minutes we had, of what I am doing and how we are making a difference and what I get up to back in Canberra (having just 2 hours before this served pizzas to the community). He kept saying: "We need more people like you in this world, there's enough of the bad stuff, we need to balance out the bad with the good!"
On that note, we arrived at my hotel. I came back to reality and realised this also was the moment of reckoning. How much would this bill be? Just then the meter, this one built into the dashboard, read $15.20. My taxi driver said: "Give me $10." "What?" I responded, "are you sure?"
His smiling face reflected what he then said with his broken Indian accent: "Yes, I want to help the world, too!"
Ronaldo
09/03/09
that's very cool!
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