The start of our adventure

Delta and I were bursting with excitement when we jumped into a cab for the airport.
"LaGuardia please!" we told the cabbie.
"Eh, good. Going anywhere exciting? I'm going to Ghana myself in a couple months," he added. Delta's ears immediately pricked up, Ghana being one of his frequent work locales.

And immediately, an enthusiastic conversation ensued, giving us a brief glimpse into the cab driver's fascinating life. We found out that he was from a little village in Ghana, about a hundred miles from the capital, Accra. At the tender age of 17, he had immigrated to New York to study civil engineering. And for the next twelve years, he had lived in the YMCA, working as a cabbie full time to get the money to live and put himself through school.

Erm, that's the same age when my only worry was drinks at a pub and my next vacation. I'm mortified.

"For six years," he told us, laughing ruefully, "I ate pizza for every meal, every day. That's all I had money for. If I look at a pizza now, I think I'd throw up!"

Delta and I listened in silenced awe as he told us how he had won a civil engineering contract to build a network of roads back in Ghana. "So I'm going back home, after all these years!" he could barely conceal the elation from his voice. "And I'm going to take some friends back with me to help. Like me, they too are cab drivers from Ghana. Some of them haven't been back in forty years. Such an easy thing for me to do, and it would mean so much to them."

Delta and I had been caught up in our admiration, and hadnt even noticed we'd already pulled up at the airport until the cabbie hopped out and opened the trunk. "Well, good luck to you, guys!" he said, shaking our hands and heading out.
"Same to you, man," we responded.

I was glad he had told us his story. It felt great to start our vacation on such a positive and inspiring note.