Talk To Strangers

While I was checking some items at one shop, a middle-aged woman from Indonesia approached me and asked where I am from?  I love talking to strangers especially if they approached me, so I replied with a nice smile to her that I am from Manila and she said she is from Java. 

We kept talking for awhile, at first I thought she was just complaining to me that many Filipinos here in Helsinki is just avoiding her or doesn't want to talk her and she doesn't understand that why Filipinos and few Thai or Vietnamese doesn't want to speak to her and I just explained to her maybe they are shy or they were in a hurry and she said she still doesn't understand  and she even concluded that maybe she doesn't have money and she looks poor that's why they don't talk to her and she said well "no problem", so I just smiled to her just to end that topic. 

As we continued to chat, I found out that she is living in Finland for about 30years (oh my!). Most of the time she is talking to me in Finnish and I'm replying to her a broken Finnish with a twist of English but I can see that she was really trying hard to talk to me in English and I was really trying hard to talk her in Finnish ( I understand Finnish but having difficulty to speak), anyway as she talked about herself and her experienced here in Finland, I understand why she approached me. She needs someone to talked too, so I was listening to her attentively and trying to comfort her. She said, she doesn't have job and gets a small amount of money from the social, she said for her case, there's a small opportunity and I patted her shoulder and she had tears in her eyes, she sees that I have more opportunity not because I am young but because she sees that I am kind and warm person ( aww). After wiping her tears, she said "no problem". 

 Her story doesn't end there ( I think we talked for about 20-30mins, while looking for a summer outfits), she talked about her husband, she and her husband are sleeping in separate rooms. She mentioned that her husband always on the phone and always business, business, business... They don't have a good communication, they are just living in the same roof. As she went on..she said her husband is using different dating app ( come on...dude!). She is aware that her husband is dating other Asian ladies and again she said "no problem!" and again she wiped her teary red eyes 😞😞😞 and I patted her shoulder.

Through her eyes, I can see her sorrow, pain and loneliness. Longing for her husband's caress and affection. And through her eyes also I can see that she is not losing hope. 

Throughout of our conversation, I learned that it is lonelier when you are living with someone with no good communication than living alone. 

At the end of our small talked ( actually if I didn't say I need to go, she will still continue but I need to cut our time cos I was running my errands). She thanked me a lot a non-stop "thank you" cos she said I made her feel better (Oh wow! imagined that I was just running my errands and I made someone feel better 😇😇😇) and before we said goodbyes I told her "God bless you".

It is better to talk to some strangers ( but of course not all strangers will be able to listen, just trust your instinct) cos these people doesn't know you at all, it's one time talk, one time conversation and one time advice, but this one time might or will be a memorable for two strangers. 



xx
Jo💖