My taxi driver had just told he he’d been living in Wales for six years and, with laughter in his eyes, was trying to get me to guess where he was from originally. I couldn’t. I’m awful with accents and knew I’d get it wrong. 🙂

He was from Ethiopia.

I asked as many questions as I could and listened as he explained how each country in Africa has its own personality. Ethiopia is Africa’s “lion.” He could tell where any African was from by their accent and, sometimes, just by their way of being. He loved his home but he had to leave else “they’d” have killed him.

The sun was shining and, as we drove past my old secondary school, he paused before he said, “They treat human life like grass they’re cutting on the lawn.”

That was yesterday morning and hasn’t left my mind yet.

I looked up recent news for Ethiopia when I got home and found that around 125 children were snatched by an armed South Sudanese group last month. Some have been freed while the majority are still being held captive.

It can be shamefully easy for those of us raised in the Western World to lose sight and forget how small our day-to-day problems really are. My taxi ride home from the dentist was a humbling reminder.