Alem

I am sifting through my purse, spilling its contents on the ground by the side of my car. I can't find my damn keys again. This is the problem with purses. I prefer deep pockets. The kind man at the "pay and park" booth comes over stooping down to help me reign in my belongings, plucking my things off the concrete; cell phone, nickels, sunglasses, a tampon, my keys. "too many things in there" he says with a laugh. "No kidding!" I reply. I turn and look him in the eye for the first time. He is grayed and sweet with peaceful eyes, a bushy mustache and missing all his teeth on the right side. He grins, and covers his smile with his hands. "You have nice eyes" he says. Two hours later, I finally leave the parking lot after spending the afternoon sitting next to him in his booth. We talk about life and travels and pain and love and loss. Alem is 62. He is from Eritrea, East Africa. Alem has been working in this same parking lot for twenty years, the companies and owners have changed, but he has stayed with his lot.  He knows the names of most people who park here. People come and go and he shares bits of their stories. As he talks about them, he begins to share about his own. He was a guerrilla in the war for freedom and independence from Ethiopia in his country for 13 years before he was wounded. Families were separated, the people were oppressed, an estimated 60,000 people were killed. Eritrea didn't gain its independence until 1993.  In combat he was wounded five times by a bomb that exploded in a building where he was. He was flow out of the country by a catholic relief organization and nursed back to health. He still has shrapnel in his brain today. "I used to have mental problems" he says frankly, "but I decided I din't want to have those problems anymore, so I got better." It's as simple as that. He talks about the scariest moments of being alive, he talks about the hope that came through people that cared, he talks about the job that he loves and the future dreams he still has. Alem became a US citizen, went to school and became the head man at a parking lot in downtown Dallas. "There are many good things about this life" he says at the end, "I have much to be grateful for." I hug him and tell him I am grateful to know him. He smiles and covers his broken grin again.

If you want to discover the best kept secret in Dallas, hang out with Alem. He is it.