It’s a common practice here in America to leave house hold items which are not in need outside the door so that the new comers can take them free of cost. Sometimes they sell it too. As a goodwill gesture & a ‘welcome’ to their land, the local church offers 3 items of your choice among the hoards of items they have free of cost. They will give you a bag & whatever you can put inside/are capable of carrying, you can take it, I was told. They might offer a piece of furniture too. Only thing is that in return you have to sit & watch a video. My daughter failed to mention it to me but one of her friends told me. Well I have not seen it so I cannot explain to you how it is.

One of my daughter’s friends was complaining about the colour of their sofa & one day when we were walking we saw a nice white sofa across the road close to our apartment. So I decided to get it for her or at least inform her about it. We kept walking & across the pond we saw a couple from let us say country “X” with a baby in a pram, sitting on bench. We walked further & after 15 minutes returned on the same way. I could see the same lady with a huge mattress balancing/struggling to hold near the pond. I was wondering where the baby & the husband were. Then I saw the husband pushing the pram at a distance. He would push the pram for a while on the footpath, keep it there, come back, & both would carry the mattress & stop again as it was very heavy.

I looked at my husband for approval to help them with the pram so they could move the mattress. They were more than happy with the offer & I started pushing. The pram had a note stuck on it for lost & found purpose, where the name was very different from the usual name the country men would use. The husband was a student & the wife could not speak any of the languages known to me except for a few words in English. The mattress was so heavy a small distance took almost 20 minutes. It was their 2^nd year in the campus.

Finally they reached the same place where we had seen the white sofa. So the sofa we eyed was already taken! Then I remembered that two days ago, I had seen a pretty, chubby little baby girl almost close to the same place, with an elderly lady with whom I could not communicate. At the same time, the elderly lady came with grocery in hand, wondering what I was doing with their baby. They said something to her & she moved on. I told them that I guess the kind older lady does not speak English as she was with your baby girl yesterday, letting her take in the sunshine, & I tried talking to her but didn’t get any response. They said in chorus no that was a girl this is a boy & she is our friend’s mother living in the same building.

That’s when I remembered something- I had noticed a couple of times, few more babies in & around while walking, always with a nanny from the same country!! This one had wife, the other one mother & two more also with middle aged ladies. Why is that particular country men’s practice different from others? How do they manage there without speaking English? Also how can they manage the apartment & the living if they are collecting the stuff around? Well I know it’s not my business but sometimes things around seems to have some mystery attached to it!! When I mentioned it to my daughter’s friends they said in unison, “yeah aunty we have seen it too but we never realized it until you mentioned it!!” My husband said you are not Sherlock Holmes… let it be…