"Can I sit here?"

The question was simple enough, and one I'd already heard a few times as people found their seats in the Good Hope Auditorium before the scheduled talk by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Smiling, I nodded to the Roman Catholic nun who grinned and sat down in the end seat of the row. Ryan threw me one of his 'you don't have to talk to people; that's what I'm here for' looks, but it was fine. With most of the lights out, I doubt the good sister knew I was one of the religious leaders in the crowd, and it didn't matter to me anyway.

But in the dark, things happened. Out of the corner of my vision, I realized the nun was leaning toward me and staring rather intently. As I turned toward her, she reached out, touched my arm, and smiled broadly. I smiled back and she touched me again.

"Are you Americans?" she asked us both, to which we nodded.

She nodded back and then said matter-of-factly, "I've never sat next to a white woman before. In your country, is it true that anybody can sit next to you?"

I couldn't breathe as she continued.

"Well, in this country, up until a couple of years ago, me even thinking I could come sit next to you, let alone touch you and talk to you...they would have put me in jail or dragged me out back and killed me. Or something worse. They say that in America this is not true. In your country we could be friends and walk down the street and talk together, and go to dinner? Really?"

She was serious. I was too stunned to respond.

"Yes, by the law, people are free to do what they wish in America," Ryan explained, "but there are still problems in some areas, and America is pretty far from perfect--"

"Don't you say that," the nun interrupted. "If it weren't for America my country would still be fighting itself. We learned everything from you. It must be a wonderful place."

Sister Cora, as we learned she was named, went on to give us a South African history lesson from the eyes of a "Colored" person within the apartheid system. Colored by this standard meant anyone of mixed racial heritage; by the description she gave, I too would be Colored, not White as she assumed me to be. It had gotten so bad in her particular area that she had been shipped off to Switzerland for a number of years by the Church, where she had been introduced to Americans, and had picked up a lifetime ideal of freedom. Sister Cora did not return to South Africa until apartheid had been dismantled, but old habits still die hard, and her country, she admitted, has a long way to go.

It's sobering to have someone from another country teach you something about your own country. I wanted so much to tell her she was right, that America truly was the land of opportunity where no person of color is ever oppressed, where equal rights under the law mean exactly that; but I could only tell her I believed in the inherent goodness of people of all backgrounds and that we were trying our best, and that I hoped this spirit of trying would encourage others to try as well, both inside my own country and in other places like South Africa. She smiled and said she could understand that, that these sorts of things take work, but she was confident God had put people like ourselves, and all the other people in the audience, on earth to make sure it happened.

His Holiness arrived and began to speak about compassion. Sister Cora reached out to hold my hand while he spoke, whispering to me that she was going to tell all the sisters in her convent about the Kemetic Orthodox and hoping that together we could put some of these ideals to work. Ryan snapped her picture and I gave her a hug, and then she was gone, saying she had other people to talk to. Though I did not see her again, I wondered what other lessons she had to teach.