Airport Encounter

Last night I was sitting in Terminal 5 of JFK International Airport waiting for my delayed flight to show up. Since it was going to be a while I was reading. Out of nowhere and older Middle-Eastern man came up to us and asked if we could tell him which was was East. He had just come back from Saudi Arabia and his new prayer mat (with a compass in it) was in his checked baggage and he needed to bed able to face Mecca to pray. My BF and I pulled out our iPhones and tried to figure it out. The man said as long as it was close enough he's be fine. We finally figured it out and he went off behind a column to pray. (I am still wondering if that was for privacy or if he thought someone was going to call Homeland Security on him.) We went back to reading after that and I couldn't help but be curious as to why he asked us and not someone else. The I remembered what book I'm reading: Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. I don't know for sure, but I think it was because I was reading a book by a Muslim woman that he thought we'd be the most helpful. (That or maybe I just look way more approachable than I feel like I look.) Either way I found it very interesting.