Not Lost In Translation

--by dan0707, posted Jun 29, 2007

I was recently walking the streets of my home town in Australia, when I an African man looking at a street sign. As I got closer, he was still in the same spot gazing at the sign.

He looked around to see if anyeone might help, but since the streets are quite busy, no one had time to stop. And instead, some people were looking strangely at him. I walked up to him and with all confidence and said, "Are you ok?" He looked at me and said "No Enlglish" and smiled politely. I pointed to the sign and said "Lost?" and he nodded.

He had a map of the area and an adress of where he was to go, so I asked for the map and got out one of my pens from my bag. I looked it up and drew a North sign on the top and a red line for him to follow. And he finally understood.

With smiles all round, he even offered to give me money. But I just said its ok and pointed where to start off at.

The next few days I saw him again at the local shops and he recognised me immediately. He smiled and it was till that moment that I realised how much a smile can really say!!!!

1981 Reads

Posted by dan0707
Jun 29, 2007
Comments (9)

Readers Comments

bibirose wrote: Gidday, O how a little thoughtfulness goes along way....and all those smiles to boot. Bless ya heaps.

Anita wrote: Its really wonderful to see this happening on your own initiative ! Definitely it is a good way to keep urself happy

Georgia wrote: Like I say in all my comments I'm 11 and I'm inspired by your story and lots of other peoples on this site. My plan to chnage the world one step at a time and the first step to doing that is to make other people kind and happy. Then once I finsih doing that and get a little bit older I will move onto bigger things like making poverty history (lets hope it IS history by then) and making sure homeless people have homes.

Big Hug
xoxoxox
Georgia

P.S I'm from Australia as well but I come from Adelaide

Aurelia wrote: Isn't funny how your act of kindness being written on this sight can open the eyes of readers far and wide. PEACE to us all and THANK YOU Dan for taking the time to help out a "friend" in need. ~Aurelia

Rajee Seetharam wrote: Hi Dan !!! I'm all smiles after reading this...thanx...God Bless.
Love

bhappy wrote: Dan0707, Thank you for taking time out of your day to help somebody else.. You have a heart of gold. Have a sunshine day!!
Becki from So.Cal

AURELIA wrote: Dan0707, thank you for being you.I hope someone saw what you did on that busy afternoon. Maybe they'll get the idea and your kindness will rub off on them! Smile, it's contagious! ~AURELIA

brighteyes wrote: Dan: How wonderful you were able to help the gentleman even though he spoke on english...."where there's a will, there's a way!" I am terrible with directions and liked your idea to map it out for him. When I am lost or do not know my way, I love running into someone kind like you for assistance...keep i tup!
Smiles from Brightyes ;)

ieiblue wrote: thanks for doing that... really nice of you to be doing such gesture....and i thought you people are snob.. hehehehhe.... :P

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