We left Asheville early Wednesday morning.
We stopped in Charlotte to see our friend Myra. She claims to be the only Jew in Charlotte. I don't know about that, but Myra has always had fabulously edgy taste in clothing and an eye for Asian art. When we went for lunch at a restaurant the place was packed with aging southern belles. John and I were the only men there. Mayra looked nothing like these steel magnolias and I’m sure her home decor looks nothing like theirs either.
We arrived late into Charlottesville.
Thursday we had a quiet day around the house. Ellen was working. We went shopping for Saturday’s dinner. We had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant in town.
Friday morning we went to Richmond.
We met up with Cynthia from John Bassett's EFM group. She gave us the quick grand tour.
Richmond is a city with lots of history that I can't begin to cover here, But Cynthia knew it all.
Monument Avenue is a boulevard of stately homes. At each intersection is a statue of former Richmond residents that we Yankees we're surprised to see immortalized.
Jefferson Davis Robert E. Lee
Stonewall Jackson. Arthur Ashe end of the road facing the opposite direction of all the other stashes. Can we say tokenism.
Jefferson Hotel
We met up with Kay and Elsa for lunch. We were having such a good time chatting and eating that I forgot to take pictures.
That evening, back in Charlottesville, we had been invited to dinner at Ellen's friend Fatima and her husband Nassar's house. It was Ramadan and they are Muslim, so they had invited some students of Ellen’s, also Muslim, who were there for an African symposium, to break their fast with us.
At dinner Nasser mentioned that he was Shiite. One of the young men, who was Sunni, look stunned. "I have never meant a Shiite before." There were several tense moments but Nasar handled the whole situation with great diplomacy. This is exactly the sort of experience the symposium was created for.
Saturday evening we were invited to another professors' house. The Africans this time we're not Muslim, so we ate before sunset and most everyone had a glass or two of wine.
One of the women at the party had obviously singled me out. She asked me many questions about John Bassett. She finally asked how long I had known him. I mustard up my courage, not knowing what the reaction I would get from this African woman, and told her that John and I were married. Her voice became very low and she told me that she was the head of the LBGT group where she lived in Africa. She had not come out to anyone in her group here. She left the room for a moment and came back with several pins from the first gay pride parade they had just had in her hometown and gave them to me.
We leave tomorrow morning first thing.
