Fighting against your fears
On the train back from Brasov to Bucharest me and Dana were in a carriage exchanging opinions about the day when suddenly Dana heard people speaking Russian.
Dana is from Moldova living in Bucharest and she knows Romanian, Russian and so on. It wasn’t the first time during that day that we had the opportunity to interact with locals about general topics. I’m especially interested in knowing stuff about the countries I go.
Dana really wanted to go talk with them but apparently she was lacking the courage to do so. Few minutes passed and apparently we were on some wrong sits in the train so we had to change the carriage we were in. So I told her:
Go, there is nothing wrong in engaging with them. What is the problem. The worst that can happen is them not talking with you.
She gave some excuses such as:
I can’t speak Russian that well.
It just looked like lack of confidence. To push a bit more I gave her time to decide or I would leave to my seat. She took a decision and engaged them.
Russian, Moldovan and Romanian people don’t have have exactly good relations between themselves because of the world war II , communism and other historical facts. So it was interesting to observe them talking about life. Prior to this event they were struggling to talk with each other and as soon Dana joined the conversation it changed to a smooth talk with her swapping languages as the conversation moved on for a long period of it. I have the feeling it was around 45 mins observing until arrived in Bucharest.
The confidence on her suddenly changed and she felt into the conversation.
In the middle of the conversation they start talking about me because I sat nearby observing the action. With Dana translating me parts, a Romanian old lady asked me:
Do you know Amália Rodrigues?
The soul of Fado? Almost every Portuguese knows her even thought she passed away. I nod and I told Dana that if she wanted I could play some for her. First reaction was it was no but few minutes later the response changed.
Apparently there was a concert in Bucharest in 1976 and that lady came to Bucharest to listen to her.
In the end everyone on that carriage was just full of joy saying goodbye to each other. Leaving the station Dana thanked me for giving her the push to go and talk with them and gave me a quick resume on about what they talked about. I could see the excitement on her as she spent time saying:
I’m still shacking.
There are moments that should never been avoided, period. My best advice is think on the worse, expect that to happen and go forward. That way you will never be disappointed.
People are capable of doing things they don’t imagine mainly because they don’t try to do it. For a person that supposedly didn’t spoke Russian she got praised for being so quick changing language while also having the courage to go talk with them.
See you soon, Paulo
