A little kindness goes a long way. I was eating in a resturant when a strange man walked up to me. He looked so excited to see me but I had never seen this guy in my life so I was confused then he brought out something that looked very familiar. My heart immediately leaped.
This thread is a story of two unrelated events that happened to me and is a reminder on why I’ll always be on the side of kindness.
So back to this strange man. He didn’t speak a word of English but I immediately recognized what was in his hand. It was my wallet. It had $700 instead of it, all my bank cards and various currencies I kept at souvenirs from people i’ve met all over the world. The shocking part?
I didn’t even know the wallet was missing. I was eating not knowing I had no means to pay. Turns out when I came down from a taxi, my wallet dropped. He was selling something by the road side, found it and started walking into every resturant on that street looking for me.
My ID card was in there and he could tell I was black (this was translated for me) and since black people aren’t a regular occurrence in these parts, he was walking into every establishment, showing them my ID & asking if I came in there.
I had in fact entered one store to admire a dress so the owner told him where she saw me enter. That’s how he finally found me. Everything in my wallet was intact. I was so grateful, that I gave him $100 but I knew even that wasn’t enough for the trouble he had saved me.
He rejected the money at first and I had to politely insist.
Later that night, I went out. Called an Uber & started gisting with the Uber driver. It was 1am so I asked him if he was working all night. He told me he was because his son needs a new game console.
the game console costs $15 & previously he needed to make only 2 trips to make $15 in a night but because of the current devaluation in Lebanon, he now had to make about 5-6 trips in other to make $15-20. So yeah he was working all night as he wanted to get this for his son.
He showed me his previous trips from that night. Average of $2. My heart sank. After he dropped me off, he apologized and told me in broken English “i’m sorry I poured my heart to you”. I told him it was fine and reminded him that I initiated the conversation.
When I asked him how much my trip was, it was about $2.5. I opened my wallet and gave him the money for the trip and then an extra $20. I told him it was my contribution to the game console. He just stayed parked for a few seconds and then said “now I can go home”.
It was when I got in, I realized that the kindness the strange man who found and returned my wallet started a chain.
A little kindness goes a long way. Good night
forgive all typos 😩
also this is not a call out but @Uber please consider adjusting the rates of rides in Lebanon. The current prices are not even close to a reflection of the massive devaluation that has occurred 🙏🏽
Once i found this out, I started paying around double of whatever the charge was
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