In Hungary, I had limited vocabulary. Two words I learned to identify early are the words for ‘no’ and ‘nada’. I became pretty sensitive to the fact that people responding to my questions or requests often used these words in their responses. And I secretly–cynically–suspected that listeners were narrowly interpreting my questions so that they wouldn’t have to help me. I can imagine one typical conversation (translated from the Hungarian):
Me (holding up my water bottle): I would like a wagon very much.
He: No, I’m sorry–I don’t have a wagon. A wagon?
Me (gesturing again with the water bottle): Wagon. Please?
He: I’m sorry; I don’t understand.
I found that, in cases where a listener didn’t understand my broken Hungarian, if I just stood there then eventually they would figure out what I needed and help me. It helped if it was clear that I didn’t have any other place to go.
Later Henning and I were again looking for water and we just tried using one of the non-functioning pumps (we knew that they didn’t work, since they were pretty uniformly disabled along the Kektura). When I did this, a guy jumped up from where he was waiting for the bus, walked over to me and gestured for me to come with him. He leaned through a neighbor’s gate, called for the woman who lived there, and got her to fill our water bottles for us from her kitchen tap.
Henning and I had bought a really accurate map of the area around Eger, and were using it to hike to a nearby town. We were walking a short stretch of road, and a car pulled up beside us. A woman on the passenger side rolled down the window, and the driver and passenger both looked at us hopefully as the passenger asked us a question, pointing forward and behind the car. I instinctively responded in the best Hungarian I could–”I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Do you speak English?” She said no, and thanked me anyhow, and they drove on. Only then did I think about the detailed map we were carrying and how, even though I couldn’t understand her question, the map was what she needed and what we should have offered.
I started to think about how we’re stimulated to helpful action. When confronted with an unknown individual asking for something, is it more difficult to assess what the need is and whether we might help? I think that’s true for me–
