The Travel Bag
by Sr. Sheila Devane MMM Ireland 11.05.2024
This is the season in Ireland for meeting politicians at the door. Local and European elections are coming soon and the hopefuls are calling with promises, leaflets, requests for a vote; all are ready to talk!Here in Templeogue Dublin, new bicycle lanes are being created so I meet workmen regularly talking of the noise, roadworks, blocked pathways, and schedules for their forthcoming renovations.
Yesterday there was another knock- it was different. Can I tell you about Hamaz Baqri’s welcome arrival?
I opened the door to a young man of Asian Indian descent; he wasn’t wearing a lanyard telling of the company he represented, nor did he hand me a leaflet about his political party nor offer to clean the roof, repaint the driveway nor talk of a roadblock next week. Hamaz came to visit.
In 1994 when studying in Manchester I went to MMM Ealing one weekend by bus coach taking a number of textbooks with me -a vain hope indeed. They weighed a ton but eased my mind even if never opened! Returning on Sunday night I was tired disembarking at the national bus station in central Manchester & quickly claimed my travel bag before taking a local bus back to Hulme Hall. The bag felt light – what a blessing! Off I went.
Arriving home, I met friends and we chatted a while. It was quite late when I unpacked my travel bag.Oh no! This was not my bag but one that looked exactly the same. It contained lots of baby clothes and no wonder it felt so much lighter than textbooks! What to do? I called the bus station and they had just heard from a family who had a travel bag full of textbooks! They were distraught as their special baby gear was missing.
Miraculously this family lived in a Pakistani neighbourhood very near where I resided. I got to their house quickly with their light travel bag and met the loveliest couple and a tiny baby boy – Hamza. A friendship was born there and then. We met several times over the coming year. While we lost touch over the years I never forgot those young parents who were so grateful to get their bag, so happy I called with it and pleased to make a new friend.
How did Hamza know where I was in 2024? Well, he is now an academic in Trinity College, knew my name from his parents and got his detective skills working from there! We chatted for ages mostly of his family, proudly stating how his mother now speaks English with a Mancunian accent and reminding me how they mentioned me often as I was their first non-Pakistani friend.
I look forward to the forthcoming visit of both parents, Abdul and Anasharah, to Dublin thirty years since we first met.
Travel bags are a big part of MMM life and certainly carry a lot. They even make treasured friends!
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