🇬🇧 Advantages of knowing how to dialogue

One of the qualities needed by nomads, which facilitates the adaptation process, and which should be a quality cultivated by any human being in the Internet age, is knowing how to dialogue.

Thinking about it, I remembered a situation I lived in at the end of the last century.

I was still studying English, lived in the second city in my nomadic history, was about 21 years old and used mIRC (dinosaurs will understand, but then it was something like WhatsApp nowadays). I made friends with a Muslim girl from a country I don't remember on a channel (group) about London. One day the girl asked me what was the typical Brazilian food. I didn't have enough English to explain that Brazil is a country with continental dimensions and each region has different typical foods. I chose the easy way out. “The most famous typical food in Brazil is feijoada” (I spoke the name in Portuguese, the rest in English as I did here) “which is a dish made with pieces of pork and beans”.

Perhaps some of you who are or have Muslim friends can imagine the girl's reaction.  😅

Total silence.

And the silence lasted a long time.

When the silence was much longer than usual, I asked what had happened.

Then she replied that Muslims do not eat pork. And she also explained the reason in detail, but it was in the last century, I don't remember. I remember enough not to make the mistake of talking about pork to Muslims, much less serving them pork.

I calmed the girl down and said that there are many typical dishes around here and many of them don't use pork. I also explained that I don't like feijoada (which is true). I must have mentioned the shrimp bobó that was my favourite dish (until I discovered the acarajé). And the prose changed course, that black cloud of “heretics Brazilian who eat pigs” left the air.

Dialogue only exists when both people know how to listen and establish boundaries. Listen is different from hear. Hear is to perceive sounds. Listen is understanding. It is knowing the individual and respecting him as a unique human being, rather than labelling him. Nobody is a label. The fact that I was born in Brazil doesn’t mean I correspond to the image you have of Brazilians. The fact of being a woman doesn't force me to act in a certain way. And so many other things. Perhaps there are also Muslims who eat pork, as I know from Indians who eat beef. According to one of them, the cow is a sacred animal in India for adherents of a certain religion, but India has many religions and those who follow other beliefs, living outside the country, can eat beef. But don't take this as a general rule if you're expecting Indians for dinner, please! We are talking about listening and dialoguing. Start practicing.

As with the situation I experienced with the Muslim, both sides must be open to dialogue. If she hadn't answered me, I might still be today not knowing what was bothering her. It's not the hardest thing in the world to pinpoint your limits. And stop creating conspiracy theories by reading strangers' texts and taking it personally.

Take care of your emotions before trying to be a nomad. And even if you don't want to be a nomad.

Nycka, the Nomad