Please Remember to be Kind
Before heading to the day's review, I thought it fitting to share with you all an e-mail sent out to family and friends, one day removed...
Hello Family and Friends,
This is not one of those junk chain e-mails, but a true story of my last 30 hours in Bolivia.
Yesterday morning, I went to the hotel next door for their breakfast buffet, with a travel buddy. After arriving, we were seated at a table next to an American. Being more outgoing these days, I chatted him up for about five minutes getting all the cordial info: name, where from, how long here, etc. He was not feeling well and told me so.
Heading to the buffet, my friend Lipika asked if we should invite him to sit with us. I gave her a non-confirming glance, but she pressed on. ¨He´s sick,¨ I said. (Selfishly, I had just gotten over being sick and just wanted an uneventful breakfast.) This didn´t faze her willingness to embrace a solo traveler. So we ended up having breakfast with Ken, learning even more about him and enjoying the better part of an hour together. He was suffering from altitude sickness, so we urged him to drink much more water. He suggested a 16oz bottle, while I countered that it would be much better to buy a two liter, as he wouldn´t want to carry the extra weight around town so it would force him to drink more water.
All three of us were excited to try mountain biking ¨the world´s most dangerous road¨. So we all decided to use the best company and ride together.
This morning, the mountain biking group met at a cafe before jumping into the vans. Ken happily saw me sitting at a table with an open seat and joined us again for breakfast. Today he looked infinitely better and was excited about the success of the two liter bottle trick. As it turned out, there were three groups of fifteen riders and Ken was in the first group while we were in the third. He was happy, excited, and we agreed to meet at the bottom (some 62 kilometers away) and to have breakfast back at his hotel buffet the next morning.
Ken died today. Unfortunately, he went off the edge of a 500 foot cliff. This was devastating for the entire group of riders.
So, my encouragement to you is to resist the urge to be insular. If you can, reach out to someone. This story could have had a very different 30 hour sequence, where no one reached out to a lone traveler who was not feeling well and eating breakfast in solitude and went on to face eternity alone. I´m grateful to have had a travel buddy to force me out of a comfort zone to embrace a stranger.
There is no other way to say that this isn´t a tragic day for Ken´s family. I know that these kinds of e-mails float around and get deleted, as I´ve deleted more than my fair share as well. Each of you know me, better than most, so try to give an honest heartfelt effort to be overtly kind to someone, in your own good time. Even if you never see the fruit of your efforts, it will be worth every moment.
Cheers and love to you all,
Paul
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