The Kindness of Strangers, Part II.

II.

Biking Baja

On a sunny day in early January six bicyclists were preparing to cycle the length of Baja California, in northwest Mexico. They had their gear spread out on the front lawn of a friend in San Diego as they finalized their equipment. A neighbor walked over and asked what was going on.

The seed of a plan to cycle Baja had started the previous summer when two of them were doing a three day cycle trip from their house to the nearby mountains. Some friends had seen them and stopped to talk. One of them mentioned a goal of bicycling Baja and another jumped in and said he would do it with them. Over the course of the autumn and into the early winter the plans were formulated to cycle the entire peninsula. 

And so it came to pass that the six of them, students, or recent graduates of various colleges, had travelled by train to San Diego with the intention of biking Baja. And when the neighbor asked what was happening somebody replied, optimistically, that they were preparing a cycling trip through Baja California. The neighbor shook his head, and in walking away, said he would never go down there without a gun. 

It was disconcerting to hear somebody say they wouldn't go somewhere without a gun, but the next day, our six intrepid cyclist took off, heading south. The border crossing was uneventful, and filling out the tourist visa proved to be a non-event as well. 

Days and then weeks passed, with the six cyclists camping in fields, on beaches, in thickets of cacti, and on school grounds. The weather was perfect for cycling, with temperatures in the 20's (Celsius), very little wind, and sunny days. They watched gray whales swim past near Guerrero Negro, ate fresh caught shrimp in Mulejé, gathered dates under the palms of San Ignacio, and were awed by the  desert plants such as cordon cactus and boojum trees.

It was on the very last day of cycling when the last of the six, pedaling along, minding his own business, heard the sound of an old engine slowing down behind him. The trip had been thirty days long, and everything had been perfect. But in the back of his mind, deep in his sub-consciousness, was the comment of the San Diego neighbor, "I wouldn't go there without a gun."

He looked ahead, but the next closest cyclist was out of earshot. Even if he screamed very loud, he was probably going to get killed by one of those murderous Mexicans the neighbor had feared.

In retrospect, the San Diego neighbor might have never been to Mexico. There are lots of people who have a sense of reality that is formed strictly from what they hear on the television news. And the news on television is inherently skewed toward deviant behaviour. Murders, rapes, robberies, and drug lords make the news because they are the outliers of normal behaviour, not because it is a common occurrence. 

As he slowly cycles toward Cabo San José he glances over to the vehicle. At first he sees the hood of an old, well traveled pick-up. He tried to focus on his cycling, but the thought of being killed on his last day of biking Baja seemed unfair. Slowly, the pick-up pulled even with him. The cyclist glanced over again.

He saw in the pick-up an old man driving solo. The driver was sitting almost on the far right side of the pick-up, with his left foot on the gas, and his left hand on the steering wheel. He was leaning out the passenger window, traveling the same speed as the cyclist, and holding in his right hand, for the cyclist to take, was an orange.

It was the end of a great, enjoyable trip, and the other cyclists, talking later in the day, had all been visited by the old man handing out oranges.

The Kindness of Strangers, Part I.

I.

The Zambian Bus Ride

Leaving Botswana after two years of working in the small village of Letlhakane, the couple boarded the northbound train out of the capital city, Gaborone. They were accoumpanyied by a couple other recently appointed Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, Tim and Laura, as well as Beva Lee and her daughter Candice.

Celebratory wine consumption was partaken whilst the train slowly traversed the country and entered Zimbabwe. Tim and Laura were zooming east to Harare and Malawi, whilst the rest of the entourage changed trains in Bulawayo and headed north through the rest of western Zimbabwe. A night was spent enjoying the sights of Victoria Falls, known locally as "the smoke that thunders" or Mosi-oa-tunya.

They walked across the bridge that spans the chasm just downstream of the falls and were asked at the customs office in Zambia if they had any food. Several loaves of bread were declared, then they taxied into downtown Livingstone where they inquired about the train going north to Kapiri Mposhi. The train wasn't to leave until the next day, so they found a cheap ronduval and spent the night listening to the band at the hotel.

The train left Livingstone in the afternoon, and most of the trip was in the dark. The year was 1990, and the capitol city of Zambia, Lusaka, was dark as they chugged past a sleeping city about midnight. The socialist policies of President Kenneth Kaunda indicated that there was a lot broken in Zambia.

The train arrived at dawn in Kapiri Mposhi and our friends followed the crowds for the two kilometers between train stations. For some unknown reason the station built by the Chinese that connects Zambia with Tanzania was a couple kilometers from the north-south railroad station.

Once again train tickets were purchased, and the train was scheduled to leave that evening. The ticket agent said men and women were not allowed in the same cabin, so the man and woman got adjacent cabins. The man was suffering from a cold, and decided to simply comply with the rules--it was only going to be an overnight trip before they were to arrive at Kasama, Zambia.

The man found his cabin and staked out one of the top bunks, putting his pack between him and the wall. His spouse and the two fellow traveller's were in the adjacent cabin. Then he fell asleep for ten hours, with just a few blurry eyed views of the cabin in the dark. Over the course of the night, as people exited the cabin, others were getting on, and looking for a place to park their bodies for the evening, both genders wound up in the same cabin.

In the morning he was feeling somewhat better. The train stopped briefly in Kasama and our traveler's disembarked. There was another stroll to the bus rank. Bus ranks in many countries in Africa are mainly large parking lots with buses, and crowds of travelers looking for the right bus, as well as people hawking wares, food, and trinkets.

Zambia was notorious for imprisoning well meaning tourist for very little reason. A year earlier a traveller was thrown in a local jail for simply taking a picture in front of a government building. So after watching the chaos of the bus rank, and having no clue as to which bus to take north to the banks of Lake Tanganyika, our travelers cautiously approached a policeman who seemed to be directing others to nearby buses.

The policeman immediately found the correct bus for the group, and he seemed almost as relieved to be rid of the Americans as the Americans were at not being arrested.

The bus was not crowded as it pulled out of the center of Kasama, Zambia. The three women had seats just behind the driver, while the man was relegated to the last bench seat of the bus. There was nobody standing--everyone has a seat, which seemed very unusual for this part of the world. When the bus reached the edge of the city, it pulled over and ten to fifteen more riders got on. Now it was getting crowded and more typical of most buses in Zambia.

It was a warm day and he day-dreamed while looking out of the windows. Suddenly, a cone of fresh boiled peanuts were handed to him. He looked up to the front of the bus, but the women were not looking back to see if the peanuts had made it to the recipient.

On most buses in this part of the world the bus will stop only long enough to take on and off passengers. There are no lunch stops where the bus stays for more than a few minutes. Instead, at each stop, hawkers, selling just about anything, bananas, pineapples, coconuts, fried foods, corn, will be standing by, making transactions through the open windows.

Some time after the peanuts arrived, and he had eaten every last one of them, a very large vegetable samosa showed up. Again, he looked to the front of the bus, but didn't see any of his friends looking back. But he did notice a man about mid-way on the bus looking at him. The samosa was held up and the man smiled and turned around.

The samosa was a large fried pastry filled with chopped vegetables and rice seasoned with curry. It was flavorful, but after the peanuts he couldn't finish it. He noticed his seat neighbor looking at the unfinished samosa, so he handed it to her. She promptly wrapped it in some paper and put it out of sight in her purse.

Then a chilled bottle of Coca-Cola arrived. He looked up and noticed the man looking back at him. He held up the bottle, the man smiled, and turned back around in his seat. Again, there was no indication that his friends had sent him the bottle of beverage. It must have been the man mid-way in the bus who had been sending him the goodies.

The cola bottle was capped, and as he was looking around for something to pry off the cap, his neighbor took the bottle and pried the cap off with her teeth, then handed the bottle back to him. He thanked her, and enjoyed the thirst quenting beverage, thinking that when he got off the bus he would thank his benefactor.

The haze of heat and travel passed, and after several hours they arrived in Mpulungu, Zambia. It was literally the end of the road, and their next travel segment was to be three days on the M.V. Luemba as it plied the still waters of Lake Tanganyika.

In getting off the bus, he looked for his un-introduced friend, but he was nowhere to be seen. He asked his spouse and traveling companions but they had not sent him any food while on the bus. He looked around in the crowd, but his friend was not to be found. He must have gotten off, unnoticed, on a previous stop.

And so, the man who was so kind to a complete stranger, had passed out of his life, unthanked.

A true sign of friendship is the kindness that is welcome but goes unthanked.