An Unexpected stop

The only speed limit sign … 25 Kilometers/hour … is in Cockburn Town, the only population of any size on San Salvador … which isn’t saying a lot.

Less than 1000 people call the 13 mile long island home but we see less than a hundred in the capital.

Laurel, Sarah’s 10 year old and I stroll into the island liquor store that also serves as the town bar.

It’s her first time in a liquor store and she’s excited … until she hears the loud music, the roars of laughter, the clacking of Domino's hitting the table and cheers for soccer on the television.

Suddenly suspicious Laurel hangs near my leg as I buy bottles of wine then she breaths sighs of relief when we tip toe passed the men drinking on the sidewalk and crawl inside our rusty rental car.

The road back to Sandy Point and our tiny house is lined with pristine beaches, brownish green scrub brush, a large white cross where Christopher Columbus allegedly made land fall in the Americas and sprinkled lightly with houses.

A man limps down the little road with his thumb stuck out.

“Let’s give him a ride,” I say slowing down.

“NO, NO, NO,” Laurel begs with wide horrified blue eyes. “HE COULD HAVE A KNIFE. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!”

“Hey man,” I say opening the back door.

“Hey Mon,” the lanky black man grimaces, “my name is Willie. I hurt my leg today.”

Long bony fingers on a paper thin hand shakes mine as I tell him my name.

“This is Laurel,” I say.

Willie shakes her hand.

I stifle a giggle when she stares at her tiny now defiled white hand before giving total concentration to the book in her lap.

“How’d you hurt your leg?” I ask.

“I fell.”

“Well,” I reply not knowing how to reply.

Willie stares out the window at the scrub brush while Laurel continues to stare at her book and I drive down the tiny road at 50 Kilometers per hour.

“Can you pick up any radio stations on the island?” I ask.

Willie shrugs saying, “Maybe AM.”

                                                                                      

We speed along passing no one for 5 or 6 miles before he sits up exclaiming we’re at his road.

Laurel breathes sighs of relief as Willie limps out into the bright sunshine.

“Let’s go find someone else to give a ride to,” I smile.

“Take me to my Mommy,” she frowns.

After a few off the road explorations we return to the tiny little house and Laurel tells Sarah what I did.

I listen with a smile but reflect on how biased we are to not be nice to others. Fearful we'll be taken advantage of,  we protect ourselves first and those we love. Besides we've helped others only to be burned with ingratitude, forgetfulness or theft. 

We become very literally with Jesus' words, "What you do for the least of these my brothers and sisters ..." is really restricted to our blood kin ... except for the ones we have little use for.

These things have certainly happened to me and I have scars to prove it but ... somehow I still believe it's better to be nice, occasionally stopping whatever it is I'm doing and give a stranger a ride.