Farewell Southampton

I’m finding it very hard to write this. I’ve started and stopped and erased and re-written this post so many times already. But maybe I’ll just start at a random moment.

On Thursday morning, I didn’t have breakfast. It was not because I was running late or anything, it was because I literally had no food in the house. I had been too lazy the night before to venture out to the shops, so I basically left for work the next day with nothing to eat. Anyway, this forced me to go to the cafeteria to get something to eat at morning teatime. So when I arrived at the cafeteria, there was an elderly guy in a wheelchair with his carer (possibly his son?) waiting to be served. The cafeteria lady popped out of the kitchen and explained that it was self-service – kind of like a breakfast buffet. They nodded and the cafeteria lady went back into the kitchen. However, they were kind of just standing there not really doing anything. I was going to have a take-away, so I kind of politely pushed in and grabbed a take-away box so that I could fill it. But I felt bad because it seemed like they weren’t really sure what to do. So what I did was, I asked them whether they were eating here or taking away. The guy in the wheelchair said that he was eating here. So I grabbed him a tray and a plate and explained to them that they just help themselves to the food in the bay maries. Then the guy in the wheelchair goes, “I want some bacon.” Now, I’m not quite sure what happened, but rather than hand the plate to the carer, I started grabbing the tongs in the bacon tray.

“How many rashers would you like?” I asked after placing some pink slithers onto the plate.
“Two,” the guy in the wheelchair says. So I do as he says.
“Do you want eggs?” I ask him.
“Yes,” he replies.
“Fried or scrambled?”
Before we know it, his plate is filled with not only bacon, but two kinds of eggs, hash browns, mushrooms, tomatoes and fried bread. I take the tray over to the cash register so they can pay. The guy in the wheelchair then asks for a cup of tea. So I go and make him one and put it neatly on the tray. I also grab him a knife and fork, serviette and salt and pepper packets. I carry the tray over for him as he gets wheeled to a nearby table. I place the tray on the table and pull a chair out of the way so he has space for his wheelchair. After doing all this, I say enjoy your meal. Not once did he or the carer say thank-you.

Now, I’d basically spent my entire tea-break helping these people and received no thanks. Should I have been bitter? Well, maybe. But I wasn’t. The truth is, I wanted to help them. If I hadn’t then I wouldn’t have bothered to pick up that tray in the first place. I was happy that I could perform some random act of kindness.

So why am I writing this? Well, the reason I thought of writing about this is because of the cafeteria lady. Now, when I first started, she wasn’t the friendliest person to me. I was new and I didn’t (and still don’t) have an ID badge to identify me as staff. Hence she was initially reluctant to give me a staff discount when I bought my first few meals. But after a while, she recognized me and it didn’t matter. Why I bring her up is, after I’d carried the tray over for the wheelchair guy to pay, she gave me a warm, understanding smile. And when I reflected on that today, it just made me realize how I’ve progressed. Three months ago, I would never have received such a smile from her. But now, three months later, she exchanged a smile that symbolized some sort of trust or development in our relationship. And now it makes sense why I think it’s time for me to leave Southampton.

I wanted to leave Southampton on a positive note. And I will be. The last few days have been evidence of that.

On that same Thursday evening, Din took me out for a farewell dinner. It was pleasant. We talked about all sorts of things and realized we shared similar life experiences, both positive and negative. When the subject turned to racism, I told him about how a guy in the street had called out “Jet Li” to me, and another had mumbled some nonsensical gibberish which was meant to be Chinese. He then told me about how people had asked him if he had a bomb in his backpack because he was Muslim. And how he was “randomly” searched and interrogated when catching the Eurostar. I was so glad to have Din as a housemate. The people at work are pretty much all white and they wouldn’t be able to relate to any of the problems I face as a minority. I told Din that he kept me sane.

Friday evening was the night of the pharmacy department Christmas party. I took it as a chance to relax, talk to co-workers and kind of just say goodbye. It was a good night. Even S came up to me and gave me a goodbye hug. Like a proper one. She kind of said she regretted not getting to know me better and she didn’t know that I could dance and stuff. What I interpreted that to mean was that we’d gotten off on the wrong foot and we kind of both “prejudged” one another. It was good that we could leave on a positive note. I said farewell to the others and they wished me goodluck on my travels. R gave me and F a lift back to Orion’s Point. We met C and some others in the foyer and I went up to their flat for a bit. It was nice sitting and chatting to them.

On Saturday afternoon I made a final visit to the library. In the evening, I watched telly with R. It’s funny, all this time I didn’t know his name until when we exchanged phone numbers that night. I used to refer to him as “Room A guy”. Haha. But I’ll miss him too. He seemed so depressed – 35 years old, unmarried and stuck in a rut. He loved his job but not his life – he was working terrible shifts that left no time for a social life. I encouraged him to take a break from work so that he could rest, socialise and think about what he wanted to do. I hope he’ll be ok.
At around midnight, F gave me a call. He wanted to go out. I said yes and met him at his flat. I went into his room and saw a totally different side to him. At work, he just seemed kind of quiet and all. But when I went to his room, the walls were covered with photos of his family and his trips abroad, and there was a massive poster of 2pac with “2pac 4 eva” scrawled below the rapper’s portrait. F was a massive hip-hop fan and learnt most of his English from listening to rappers ranging from Eminem to Jay-Z. He had come over to England from Algeria when he was just 17, and arrived knowing no English. He told me he loved his family dearly, especially his father, and went back home to visit every chance that he could. We then went to a club for a couple of hours and headed back home after snacking on some fried chicken. He kept thanking me for going out with him, that he had just needed to go somewhere to chill after a stressful day of work. And I thanked him for inviting me out. It’s funny how I could have easily had said no to his invitation– I was in my pajamas and dead tired at the time. But by saying yes, I got to know him better and see a whole different side to him.

It seems like there are all these people in the world – all with their own stories. And we can only see a minute fraction of them, mere tips of the icebergs. If only we searched a little bit deeper and got to know them better, we might actually understand where they’re coming from.

And now I reach today, Sunday, my final day in Southampton. I met up with D and J and we took the ferry across to the Isle of Wight. It’s funny how the two people I thought I hated the most turned out to be the two that I will actually probably keep in contact with. I think it was just a whole lot of misunderstanding: J with his cultural differences and D with his cynical manner. But we spent a great day together, having lunch at the pub and playing cards over drinks. I think I’m going to miss them too.

So there you have it, the people I didn’t really talk to at work turned out to be the people who I hung out with on my last few days, and the people who I talked and joked with at work didn’t even say goodbye to me. It’s funny how things work out.

Now, I mentioned before that I wanted to leave Southampton on a positive note. And well ironically, the decrepit state of Orion’s Point has made that even more possible. What happened was, I woke up this morning with no electricity. The entire block had no electricity for the whole day. So when I got back this evening, there was a note on the doors of the block saying: “For Health and Safety Reasons Do Not Enter This Building”. When I went to the security guard to find out what was happening he explained that the electricity was still out and that all residents in the block would spend the night at Jury’s Inn – a three-star hotel across the road. Sweet! So here I am, typing this in the comfort of my hotel room, having first taken a long, luxurious bubble bath and watched cheesy Christmas movies in my comfy double bed.

Goodbye Southampton.