[Global] Southern Hospitality

Today I went on my own to visit Pastor Hernando (my "supervisor" for my work at Km 13 church) at his house, because he injured his knee over a month or so ago, and hasn't been able to work since then. His house is in a neighborhood that's about a 50 minute bus ride from where I live in Comas. As I'm waiting to catch a bus back home, I hear someone calling my name. It's a cobrador (person who advertises a bus's routes and collects the fares from the passengers), and he's telling me that his bus will take me home "to the house where Javier lives." I didn't recognize the guy, though his face looked slightly familiar. And he obviously knew me and my host family, so I got in and sat down.

As he came over to where I was sitting to collect the bus fares for all the passengers, I stuck out my hand with my fare. He gave me a smile, and grabbed my wrist, giving it a firm shake. He obviously wanted to shake my hand instead, but couldn't, because it was holding the bus fare, which clearly didn't interest him. He asked me how I was doing, and I explained to him that I didn't realize this line went all the way where I was trying to go. We continued chatting for a few seconds as most of the passengers on the bus looked back at me, wondering who was this gringo who knew the cobrador.

I sat back in my seat for the long ride back. A few minutes into it, the cobrador hopped off the bus to buy a couple sodas from a street vender. He gave one to his driver. I assumed he bought the other one for himself, but sure enough he came back to where I was sitting and gave it to me, with a big smile.

"So first you don't have to pay him your bus fare, and now the cobrador buys you a soda?" the sitting next to me asked jokingly. I gave a forced laugh, embarrassed. "He's a good friend," was all I could say. But right after I said it, I realized that was an outright lie. I didn't even know the guy's name.

So I know all of this might not sound like a big deal, but it really made my day. And I'm sure some people might say "well he obviously just wants you to do something for him in the future." Or people might say "he was so nice just because he's really good friends with Javier." And any of those people might be right. But it really doesn't matter. This guy, even though I still don't know his name, made my day. And it was just the latest of a long, long list of examples of how many wonderful, nice people I've gotten to meet here in Lima.

I figured out from talking to him later on my ride back that I met the guy when he visited Javier and Raquel one night while I was home with his wife and two young children. And his kids, about 3 and 4 years old, were adorable and thought I was hilarious.