The Help of Strangers

Last week, my Squad went to something called Month One Debrief. This is a time for us to reflect and talk about our first month on the field, a time to rest, and a time to have fun. We also get to see our Squad Coaches because they fly out to our debrief location, so that’s pretty great! With that being said, for our debrief here in Romania we traveled to a city called Brasov. This contained us getting on a 3 hour train from Craiova (where we are currently staying) to Bucharest (the Capital) and once in Bucharest changing trains and then going from Bucharest to Brasov on another 3.5 hour train. As you can imagine, trying to get 27 people from start to finished comes with its challenges (shoutout to the entire squad because you guys were amazing the entire travel day!). Anyway, with all that being said, there were so many people that helped us along the way to get from Craiova to Brasov and I honestly don’t think we would have gotten there on time if it wasn’t for these people so I wanted to share. 

 

It was the man on the train wearing the cream sweater and orange undershirt who helped us get on the right train car. We were walking up and he clearly saw me staring at my train ticket trying to find which train car was which. With no hesitation he asked what car I was looking for and then proceeded to help not only me, but the rest of the squad get on the correct train cars. 

 

The woman who offered us fruit and water while standing on the side of a railroad waiting for our train. So our travel day didn’t go exactly as planned and our first train broke down. We had to get off the train in the middle of nowhere and wait in front of a woman’s house until our next train came to pick us up. As we were standing in front of the house, the lady who owned it came out and offered all of us fruit and water while we waited. 

 

The man that offered to show us where to walk because we didn’t know if we were getting off at the right train station. So as we were pulling in the train station, a man standing next to me asked, “Are you trying to get to Gara Nord?” I turned around and let out a little chuckle as I said, “Actually yes, are we at the correct stop?” He replied with, “This train stops here, but if you follow me toward the big station I can show you where you need to go.” He patiently waited while we gathered everyone in the group and then walked us to the station.

 

The conductor that made sure we knew where we were going in the station before getting on his train. Once we started walking toward Gara Nord, the conductor on the train we had just gotten off was walking to the next train he had to get on and offered to show us what line we needed to wait at in order to get on our next train. He made sure we knew where we were going before he left to get on his next train. 

 

A man wearing a red shirt with a blue zip up hoodie that helped us translate to buy new train tickets. You would be surprised how hard it is to buy train tickets for one person, let alone tickets for 27 people. The lady at the counter didn’t believe that we needed 27 tickets because it’s rare that people buy more than 3 or 4. If we didn’t have someone to translate, I honestly think we would have been trying to buy new tickets for at least a few hours, but instead it only took us 10 minutes.

 

The lady on the train platform with headphones around her neck directing us to the bus station. When we finally got to Brasov, we still had to buy bus tickets to get to the place we were staying for the week. We all got off the train and then had no clue where to go to buy bus tickets. We asked a lady standing on the platform where the bus station was and she kindly offered detailed directions on how we could get there. 

 

The girl in the red beanie who walked up and asked if we needed help buying bus tickets. When we were talking to a woman who worked at the train station asking where we could purchase bus tickets, the woman at the counter didn’t speak English. So, after some effort we walked away, as we turned around a girl in a red beanie walked up with her boyfriend. They kindly asked, “Are you trying to buy bus tickets? We can show you where to get them and how they work.” — Now I have to say this, when we were talking to the woman at the counter the girl and her boyfriend weren’t standing behind us and I hadn’t seen them the entire time we had been at the train station… which meant they had no idea that we just asked the woman about buying bus tickets. — After that they walked us over to the kiosk, helped us purchase tickets, explained how the tickets worked, and taught us how to read the time sheets so that we would know how to do it all again when we needed to get back to the train station.

 

A few hours later than we expected and with the help of a bunch of amazing, kind people we finally made it to the hostel we were staying at. No way would we have gotten there that same night if it hadn’t been for everyone who was placed in our path throughout the day. 

 

I can’t believe month one is over. Thank you for being apart of this journey and reading my blogs.

Hope you enjoyed.

Love, Sumer

 

 

I am currently still fundraising and have $2,600 left to raise by January 15th. If you feel led, you can donate through my blog or if you have any questions feel free to message/email/whats app me! Thank you to everyone who has already helped me get this far! I love you all and it means so much that you would help me get this far already. I can’t wait to continue to share this journey with you.