It took me a second to realize what had happened, but it didn't take her that long to start blaming me and using language that would "make a sailor blush". (yes, unfortunately, I already know a few choice Russian words). Then she started pointing at me and telling everyone in earshot: "There's an idiot! That young person is such and idiot!" with choice words thrown in between.
Yeah, I didn't know what to do. The situation really wasn't my fault, but I felt obliged to try to help the lady who was cussing at me and calling me bad names. Finally another babushka came along, one who had seen the whole thing, and basically told the falling babushka (who was upright by now, by the way) to shut up. But she didn't use bad words.
I was quite upset by this whole incident. I told my language teacher about it today. She taught me some phrases to use, should such a circumstance happen again. She also said that when a person who is genuinely innocent in a situation like that seems weak, that the supposedly offended person will jump on that and make things really bad. She said that I had to stand up for myself and tell the lady to watch where she was going.
Hmmm....that will be hard for me. I don't want to be a doormat, but I also don't want to return rudeness for rudeness. Not to be avoidant, but hopefully it won't happen again any time soon. I don't like seeing babushkas fall, and I really don't like hearing them cuss!
4 comments:
that sounded absolutely awful. can you tell me again was "babushka" means? i know you wrote that on one of your posts way back when.
it does seem counterintuitive to put that woman in her place when returning her rudeness with kindness would speak volumes (by the way, i don't know that i would have been able to be that humble to help this woman yelling at me).
Oh, sorry about not explaining better! "Babushka" means grandmother, and is used generally to refer to any woman over the age of, um, 60? No offense intended to anyone reading this above that age, if you don't want to be referred to as a grandmother in general. :)
I also don't know that humbleness was my motivation for trying to help her, and I didn't do it for very long. She didn't want me to help her anyway. But thanks for the compliment. And to me it does seem counterintuitive, but this culture is very different where that goes. I probably need to post about that sometime, because it is really difficult for me to grasp and to know how to, what's the word I want, biblically handle this part of the culture.
Love you, Guitta!
Can you put her in her place with respect? Next time it happens stand up for yourself and use the phrases you teacher taught you but do it with love. Sometimes the things Jesus told people in the New Testament didn't come across very loving but more firm and corrective. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do for someone is to not let them run over us but to have confidence in Christ. Just a thought.
That would definitely be my goal, Carrie! Thank you for putting it in plain language, though, relating it to the way that Jesus spoke in the NT; because of course, He is the best example! Now I just have to figure out how to do it in Russian--maybe the tone of voice I used with the phrases I learned would be the way to go.
Unfortunately, I think she had been drinking, which is sadly quite often the case.
I'll be posting something new soon that I would love your perspective on; it's a similar situation to this one, but I'm pretty sure that I flubbed it up big time, especially as an example to Isaiah! :(
Thank you for reading!
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