The kindness of strangers

Longtime readers may remember that I have no sense of direction and the gene that interprets maps is missing from my DNA. I can get lost if there are only two houses on the street. After my recent vacation, I can add Sarajevo, Dubrovnik and Vienna to the list of cities where I have gotten lost. In the first two I wasn't necessarily lost, just turned around a bit, and once I asked someone a question like "which way is the river?" I got my bearings. Also, I had friends who were just a phone call away should I really need to stand there and say, "I'm at the statue of the crusader, come get me."

A store clerk in Dubrovnik left her post to walk me outside and down the block to point me in the right direction. In Sarajevo, a young Muslim woman from whom I bought a couple of scarves asked other merchants to help me get to where I wanted to go, although their combined limited English and my lack of Bosnian hindered our conversation. Through sheer luck I found the fruit market. Years ago an elderly woman walking her dog in a park on the South Side of Chicago directed me to the Dan Ryan and on a rainy day in London a very tall man with a large umbrella escorted me across a busy street to the tube station. 

Not so in Vienna. I was on my own for the most part. Lovely city. Historic city. Turn a corner and there is a fountain or a former palace that is now a government building. Turn another corner and you're in a small alley with a few stores and a cafe or an international glass exhibition. Look up and over and there is the top of a cathedral. Stop a stranger because you got off at the wrong train stop or exited the wrong way and ask for directions? Nothing.

When I turn the tables, I wonder about my own responses to people asking for help or direction. Am I a Bosnian or a Viennese? Mostly I think about those folks at intersections with 'homeless and hungry' signs. They are looking to strangers for the basics, but society has taught us to be skeptical, although I don’t get why anyone would choose standing in the cold, hot, rain and wind as part of a scam. Society has also taught us to not look, to pretend they are not there. So the choices are to ignore or to look at and shake your head no. I used to carry granola bars in the car to distribute but have gotten out of that habit. Yesterday I picked up a couple boxes and with each one I give away I’ll remember the kindness from strangers in my own life.

 

Marilyn