Stories of Kindness from Around the World

Kindness Needed No Translation


--by joycesimard, posted Sep 5, 2016
We traveled to Moscow Russia for a river cruise. I had never been to Russia and my impressions of that country were formed by what I hear and see on television and the newspaper. We were to be met at the airport by a driver who would then take us to the hotel as we decided to see Moscow before the cruise. We arrived on time, got our baggage and went to the gate, no one was waiting holding a sign with our name.

We had the phone number of the driver and travel agency but no phone that would work in Russia. I noticed a young woman sitting next to me with a cell phone so I asked her if she spoke English and she replied "yes". Would she please call our driver, I would pay for the call, I asked. "No problem" she replied and called both numbers but no one answered.

A Russian woman holding a sign with someone's name on it, not ours, must have overheard this conversation and took the paper and called both numbers. Again, no one answered. She shrugged and sat down then her phone rang and in Russian she had a conversation.

Then she started to tell me about the call, but in Russian. I said "no Russian, English?". She said "no English Russian and Spanish". The young woman who had made the first call said she spoke Spanish. So...the Russian woman relayed the information from our driver to the young woman in Spanish. Then the young woman told the information to me in English.

The three of us looked at each other and realized what had just happened and laughed and hugged each other. International kindness.
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Readers Comments

AndiCas wrote: Superb!
splain wrote: Wow and how is that for connecting
dandeliongirl wrote: haha.. wow, fantastic.. what a great story.
mnc_91 wrote: I love this story of international kindness! Kindness knows no color :-)
TC wrote: Kindness knows no borders. Thank you for sharing your story.
mindyjourney wrote: The common international language is KINDNESS! :))) thank you for sharing with us.
mish wrote: Awesome circle of kindness there!!

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