I had a small small talk with a short barista with a lovely huge smile in a cafe in Central Kathmandu yesterday. He asked me: “Chai, good?” I was quite in my own world, but I was pleasantly surprised by his big smile and his brave attempt to practice his English and I said, “Yes, absolutely. Amazing chai, brother.” He smiled yet again and expertly poured over the warm milk into three cappuccinos over the counter, as I was thinking to myself that I should’ve ordered myself one of these and that Nepali baristas are definetly starting to earn my faith. Before leaving I told him, “Next time, I’ll order a cappuccino too brother!” He smiled and apologized and bowed his head down a few times and said: “Sorry, sorry, bad English. You? Where you from?” “Israel,” I said assertively with tired eyes and zero expectations.

As an Israeli, you never know how the face and the gaze of the person in front of you will suddenly shift after you’ve revealed to him the following two revelations: one will be that they finally meet someone from the country they keep seeing on the news every day. And the second revelation is when I reveal to them that I am Israeli. Yes. Perhaps their perception of the nice person they’ve been chitchatting with has shifted. Sometimes they can’t help it, and I can see it in their eyes. It can get very obvious sometimes.

Mariette and I were in an Italian........

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