i'm not sure where it comes from but i'd love to know, for it is a common thing in the horn of africa as much as in central africa
you're walking down the road and you trip, or you're in a shop and you bump against something... nobody else involved, and inevitably, the reply you get from any witness is sorry
it always makes me chuckle, for it's such a polite and caring reaction with the nuance of the expression lost in translation
misunderstandings however go well beyond cultural and linguistic translations
the readings we may make of someone's attitude, reactions and expressions could be diametrically opposed to their intentions, even while having a common culture and language, let alone when we add to the cocktail, differences in gender, religion or set of believes, sexual orientation, standard of living, education....
you wonder how easy is to cross the fine line between misunderstanding and conflict, how easy it would be, if for any combination of factors above we added empathy and talking time
it may be a totally naive statement but the more i work on conflict, the more i'm convinced that world reality would be less depressive and conflictual if only we practiced those more
all of us, each individual person
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