Kindness of Strangers

On our way back to Porto, we found ourselves in Pesa de Regua, a business center for the port wine industry. We parked in the center of town, looking for a place to eat lunch. First, we had to negotiate the parking meters. In theory, you should be able to pop a few coins of your choosing into a machine, producing a ticket for the amount of time you paid, which is then placed on the dash of the car. Nothing is ever so simple. The machine only accepted denominations smaller than one Euro, which was all the change we had. In studying the machine, we saw that the meters stopped running at 2pm; it was 1:30.

A man approached, seeing, I’m sure, the perplexed looks on our faces. His red plaid shirt hung awkwardly from his frame, his beard had grown a bit too long, and his salt and pepper hair was scraggly. He smiled broadly and said something in Portuguese that we didn’t understand. We showed him our one Euro coin, hoping he could piece together our source of confusion. He pointed to the time on the meter, insisting that we only needed to pay for 30 minutes. A one Euro coin would be too much. He pointed across the street to the bakery and restaurant. “Go there for change,” he said. We walked into the bakery, and the man followed us. I asked the girl at the counter if she could make change, to which she produced two 50 cent coins. Realizing we only needed to pay 20 cents for half an hour the man explained the situation to the woman in Portuguese, something my limited vocabulary prevented me from doing myself. I held my palm outstretched, and she plucked one of the 50 cent coins from my hand, giving me back two twenties and a ten.

The man looked pleased. “You only need to use the 20 cent coin,” he said. We wished him many thanks, and he waved to us as we made our way back down the street.

I hate to admit it, but when the man approached so enthusiastically, I found myself clutching my coins a little bit tighter. I assumed he was begging for change, when in fact his only motivation was selfless: to be helpful and show kindness do two perfect strangers who were obviously at a loss.

We moved onto Penafiel, which houses a cluster of monasteries from the 12^th century. It was only 10 kilometers south of town, and we had some time to kill, so we decided to investigate. At first, the route was clearly marked with signs, but soon we were traveling through a maze, our car hugging the high stone walls overflowing with grapevines. “We can’t be on the right track,” I said, but every time we stopped and asked for directions, we discovered we were. The road grew more narrow, until I could hear hydrangeas slapping against the sides of the car. We bumped down the road, wondering where this monastery was.

When we finally found it, forty-five minutes after we had taken our detour, our first thought was, “How do we get out of here another way?” Maikael asked a taxi driver – who always know how to get anywhere — how to depart town via a larger road. He explained a series of detailed directions, and we began to drive out of the parking lot. Suddenly, a taxi appeared in front of us, and we saw a long arm extend out of the window. The driver’s left pointer finger flexed up and down, signaling for us to follow. It was the taxi driver, leading us out of town. Each time we hesitated – left or right? – a reassuring arm shot out the window, pointing the way.

When we reached the last rotunda, the taxi slowed down and pulled to the side of the road, pointing straight ahead. We smiled and waved, once again marveling at the kindness of strangers.