So words are not all that communication is and they don’t need to be perfect, but they need to come from somewhere…
Two of these experiences (communicating beyond words) are forever printed in my memory. One was in South Korea when I took the wrong bus, not being able to read Korean fluently (!) and was dropped in the middle of nowhere to find my way back to my destination. I came across a woman crouching on the side of the road who seemed to be waiting. Within seconds we were conversing and laughing – in what language I do not know as my Korean was exhausted after 10 words and her French was non-existent – English was also not an option at the time – yet my experience of communicating with her was very real! She proudly got me a seat on the right bus, which would take me back to Seoul, chatting away about her encounter with me to all the other passengers and milking it, that much was obvious! NB: at the time of my travel, a long time ago, it was very unusual to see Westerners in the Korean countryside, especially on foot!
The second one was when I was traveling around the States. It was February so there were very few tourists around on that crisp sunny winter day. I was visiting canyons in Utah and arrived at one which was completely deserted apart from one Native American Indian woman, coming up a path. She was carrying beautiful jewelry that she would usually sell to tourists but there was just the two of us on that day. We spoke to each other until her son arrived to pick her up. We were laughing together when he approached and he said, with a puzzled look on his face: ‘my mother doesn’t speak English and you do not speak our language so what have you two been talking about?’ We both looked at each other and laughed again as we had understood each other beyond words.
Two magical moments for me…
Have you ever had similar experiences? I would love to hear about them.
To be continued….
