Today I felt like I’m learning how to live here, a little, at least. My visitor and I traveled back across three (skinny) countries so that I could get her to the airport. There were tons of border crossings. At the last one, there was a very insistent guy who wanted to "help" us with all the formalities. First he wanted $10 to give to the border police for our luggage. I smiled, said no, walked over, shook the policemen’s hands, and they let me through-there is no luggage fee. Our helper tried the same thing with the customs lady-$4 this time. I didn’t get mad, just laughed and said "good try" to our helper. He laughed too, and walked away happy with his tiny tip.
That’s a good ending to an interaction-nobody mad, everyone laughing, a story to tell. All in all, a good day.