Aiden Deis: My Subset of Reality

Time Zones

  The first school I actually got to answer my call was a missionary school in Ethiopia called bringham. I was excited and nervous when they answered. It was a lady who answered and she seemed to speak pretty good English, but she got very frustrated when I tried explaining my idea. Eventually she said: "Just hang on." And then I could hear what sounded like heated discussion in the background. A man said: "hello?" He was distinctly British. I started explaining the fragments of an idea that I had come up with during the midnight hours. He cut me off mid sentence and simply said "wait" in a very commanding voice. I thought I'd had it. To be honest I thought that the man was about to go report me to someone.
"Sorry, the lady who answered doesn't speak very good English, and the background noise in that room is so bad, I couldn't really understand you." I was so relieved. I explained the idea to him again slowly. He seemed to understand me perfectly even though I didn't even fully understand my idea yet. He sounded very excited, but said I needed to send him an email as an official request, so that he could have it approved by the right people.
The next place I tried was the Netherlands, but I didn't get an answer, I also tried Australia and the united emirates. China was the next one to answer, they seemed to give the idea some though, but were adamant that I Fax an official request form.
It was late enough at this point that I could call South Africa. I'm very glad that it was the last one that I called for the night, the lady who took my call was extremely optimistic about the idea and had a group of students in mind she though this would be good for.
I was oddly comforting hearing her speaking English in that familiar accent, I enjoyed listening to it and didn't really want to hang up at the end of the conversation, but it felt like the appropriate thing.