A Big Thanks to Tom

One of my favorite things about living here in Zambia and interacting with the children around my village is the thumbs up I get when I greet them.  At first I would just say "hello" and wave at them, then one day I got a thumbs up from a kid I passed on my bike.

From that day on I've decided that if the thumbs up was good enough for Tom Cruise as Maverick in Top Gun, well then, by all means, it's good enough for me... it's good enough for all of us.

Ah, thank you Tom.  Thank you very much.

Now I have no idea where or even when these kids learned the thumbs up greeting, but I like to think it came from Top Gun and Mr. Cruise, some time / somehow.

Although the thumbs up gesture has a very rich and varied past (ranging from Ancient Rome to World War II to contemporary times), I believe that its use here in rural Zambia now has added a new chapter to that history.  And without doing any real research or even trying to back this claim - I think a big thanks is owed to Tom Cruise for his advancement of this universal gesture.  So let me speak for all of us and say, "Thanks Tom.  Thanks."

It is worth noting that according to Wikipedia (the best website in the world) the thumbs up gesture in the Middle East has a derogatory meaning.  Tom must not be loved as much there.