Last autumn I was getting on a train at the Helsinki Central Railway Station. I was on the phone, speaking in Amharic. A man in a suit came up to me. He showed me his phone. “DON’T SPEAK YOUR FUCKING LANGUAGE” it read I didn’t stop, though. The man came back to show the message again. At this point a woman sat next to me and asked if I knew the man. When he came up to me for the third time, even the teenage boy sitting across from me got involved. He told the man to go to the other end of the carriage, if he was so bothered by my talking. This wasn’t the first time I had been harassed, but it was the first time someone intervened. It felt wonderful.
Solomie
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