In the States, times have changed somuch.  It has increased in danger ten fold.  No more are the days of trusting a stranger to help you out and give you a ride off the side of the road.  If you think that's bad, you can thank all of the crime-solving shows that give you every detail of just how dangerous a "stranger" can be.  All those years of embedded training that "strangers" can't be trusted.

Now, I find myself in a world that's similar, but still quite different.  Here, in a country where at least 75% of the population is barely making it day to day, public transportation is the only option for many.  Yet, if you live in a small village "aldea", you may not have public transportation at all.  Because these aldeas don't have paved roads, the tricked-out school buses many people depend on are unavailable.  These people have to depend on the kindness of strangers.

As I rode in the pick-up with one of my co-workers going to an aldea, we stopped a couple of times and picked up people along the way.  There's very little conversation between them, and, sometimes, there is none at all.  It's an understood way of doing things here.  To them, it's just another day, there way of life, but to me, it's a simple act of kindness that I think the world is missing.  My coworker could have let those people walk the 2 to 3 hours to their village up and down the mountain side, but he didn't. 

It meant a lot to me to watch. This crazy world does not allow for too many of these events to take place, but in this corner of the world, I have found a simple act of kindess.