Lately I kept bumping some old workmates from the place I used to work in Queanbeyan. One week ago, someone yelled at me in a passing car. As it was near a traffic light, and the green was on, I couldn’t find out who was yelling. What I can only see was a weaving arm sticking out of the car window. I reckon it was highly possible one of my previous colleague. Last Thursday, I met Tess, who almost shouted at me calling my name in the mall, which was unusual in this culture. However today’s lunch time when I was walking in the Riverside Plaza, I heard someone calling my name again. The sound was full of surprise and it was so obvious that I could feel it even before I realised who was calling. It was one of my previous colleagues when I was working in a nursing home.

We used to be quite close spiritually as I felt for her situation and we used to talk a lot about where we came from and where we are going to in this country. For several times, it ended up being quite emotional as both of us actually was moved by ourselves, and by all the experience we had in the past, the dim future we was worrying about and the encouragement that we had ready to overcome whatever the difficulties would be.

We had never been into a relationship called friends or mates, as we are quite different, the age, the culture, the experience and the background. But we can talk, and both of us have the compassion and understanding toward what we were talking about. It’s unusual as most of time. it’s not always possible to make people understand where I come from, not just the understanding toward a name of a country, but a great deal of things that I have gone through and they probably would never go through in their whole life. So I got to used to not talking much about my personal stories, though I had heaps.

To be frank, I’ve forgotten her name (she’s got a Macedonian name), which should have been an embarrassing thing for me. Anyway I avoided calling her name, but we did hug and kiss to greet and finally said good bye. According to my observation, she is a respectable lady, although I heard she had a bit trouble getting along with other staff. But allow me to say, those staffs are not someone who had a good reputation.

She was affectionate to residents, and worked really hard. Sometimes, it does not always do her good as some staff working in that place was lazy and big mouthy. Except making gossip and pinching the food from residents’ plate, they did nothing or in another word, they kept their effort to a minimum level to pursue the goodness and kindness, which was really mean. She probably couldn’t stand them, and often spoke up for her rights. That’s why she was left outside that nasty loop.

But she is brave. I never have seen any other people as brave as her. Imagine a woman left her home, came here and spent her time in a strange country for nearly 20 years, without a PR, with two big kids to raise, and spoke not good English at the first 5-10 years, who else could do that? I would have had gone home already. But she is still here, at her 50s, had passed her EN course and ready to do RN. Her kids have grown up and got a decent computer job. She applied for PR for several times, and had failed for the same number of times. But she never lost her courage to try.

And she looks fantastic, protecting her skin from the ageing carefully as you can see her face was shining all the time, maturely wonderful skin and much better than those nasty people who smokes, drinks and gossips at their much younger ages. If you need a word to explain all the difference between her and others, the only word I could find is “attitude”, the attitude to get over the hardship, the attitude to choose the good, and the attitude to do something for what they had chosen.

I say it’s a smallville, not that I think it’s because we can easily bump each other on the road or any corner in this world. What I meant is this world doesn’t really have a big space left for those cowards who drifts away with their fates or unable to make their own choice for a better life or become a better man. Let’s face our weakness as a human being. We are this kind of creature, who easily chooses to do less than what we could do, and hardly has the courage to do more than we could do.