One of my old dreams was to casually meet and have a meaningful chat with someone in a foreign country, from a completely different background. Seems easy (especially for you, extroverts!) but if you think of it, it may actually be not so simple, given our hectic lifestyle.
Well, my one-year old son 🧒 does it with such an ease that it makes me wonder, where the hell did he learn it? Yesterday, while we were walking along the seaside in Fethiye, Turkey, he saw a kid playing with a toy car. He then strolled towards the kid, inviting to play together. My son was about 4 times younger, from another country, totally different culture and yet, they got along immediately. Kids parents, seeing this, bought us an ice-cream and this is something people don’t normally do in Russia. It also happened to be the first ice-cream my son ever tasted.
After that (and some awkward moments of us don’t know what to do) they invited us three to have a tea with them in a nearest restaurant. That was truly wonderful 2 hours we spent there, talking about casual things, sharing stories about our children and just watching them play together. It’s really interesting to watch little ones communicate and care about each other.
Makes me wonder when people tend to lose this ability to understand one another, no matter what.
Thank you, Jamal, for this experience. I hope it all will be well with your mother.