For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in. (Matthew 25:35)
Odysseus and Jesus Christ were both wanderers and peripatetic heroes, but they relied on the kindness of the strangers for food, shelter and warmth. Ancient Greeks would not talk to any stranger who appeared on their doorstep before feeding him, clothing him, and bathing him first, for the stranger could have been the thundering Zeus or the cunning Athena, who was disguised as a common woman when she was greeted by Odysseus' son Telemachus. Even though Jesus could perform miracles and feed five thousand mouths, he needed neighborly hosts to allow him a place to sleep during his journeys throughout Galilee, until he was persecuted severely by the Romans, who considered him an unwelcome and disruptive intruder.
We are far from being a prophet like Christ or a brave and shrewd warrior like Odysseus, but we have seen ourselves fed and pampered with so much solicitious attentiveness by the Mexicans throughout our 3-month hitchhiking trip in the southeasternmost part of the country, that the very meaning of 'adventure' have been threatened. Oftentimes, we have felt it was too easy to travel with those well-meaning, amiable mestizos who would let us sleep in their houses or eat their eggs without a second thought.
We looked and felt like hapless and lost travelers with wondering, hopeful eyes when we arrived in Cancun, our first stop, our bags heavy by overpacking. Overconfident, we eventually lost our way to a house we arranged through couchsurfing, and we had to ask somebody where the house of the address we had was located. It was already dark, and we were in a seedy and improvished part of the outskirts, well away from the glamorous Zona Hotelera where so many drunken stories forgotten by freshmen had transpired every spring. A mexicano told us we were way off the mark, but he took us on a taxi ride and guided us to the spot. Our host would not arrive until midnight, but that time we were well-fed with our first tamales of the trip and got another place to stay when a family chattering on their porch saw us (again, we must have looked so helpless...) and invited us in, and eventually entreated us to be their guest for a week. Just like that, we had a place and food for an entire week.
The extended family dining in the backyard.
"What's in it for them?", a cynic might ask. True, we are largely "parasites," as Che Guevara identified himself in his diary as he traveled northwards from Argentina, smooching off hospitable Chileans and other indigenous peoples of South and Central America, until he arrived in Guatemala and transformed himself into a revolutionary leader. Why would anyone give us anything who have almost nothing to give back? Perhaps they hope that they will make friends and have a place to stay in our homes whenever they travel there, but most Mexicans do not travel except to visit their relatives or to "coyote" across the border for opportunities in United States. Money simply does not permit them; traveling is still a largely white privilege. Perhaps they hope for some money in return, but many of them often offer money or food to us. Perhaps they are simply inspired by us, wanting to hear stories of our travels and imagining vicarious thrills. Perhaps it aggrandizes their egos to help some pitiable deaf-mutes. Whatever it is, I do not feel they expect anything from us in return - the only thing that motivates them, I believe, is their simple moral instinct, to help us. Every time we get a ride, or receive something given in goodwill (is such a pure thing possible?), our faith in humanity, to use a clichéd phrase, rises. It was the same hospitality that made Che feel indebted to the poor peoples in Latin America that he swore to help them.
As it have been said countless times, the media gives us a distorted view of the world, yet we cannot separate our perspective from the media's if it is the only perspective we know. The only way to individualize and enrich your point of view is to go and see, then digest and think. The media is not the dangerous thing, it is the uninformed, unexperienced, and uncritical mind that is the meance. Everyday our understanding and perspective of the world have been shattered, re-built, and re-shattered. Not all of us are good, but there are more of them than you might think.
Again, we are not heroes or protagonists on a meaningful journey with an end, who attain a dramatic, climactic epiphany. We are just two young adults striken with wanderlust and amusing ourselves with new, strange sights and perpetual motion. But we have been impressed by the "kindness of strangers" that goes back to Homeric and biblical eras, enough to make us stop and muse. We do not know how well the other countries will treat us, but we are eager to find out.
A casa in Isla Aguada, a fishing community lodged between a lagoon and the Gulf.
Typical house in Mexico - cement blocks, unadorned, glassless windows. Casa of a man who picked us up without us ever raising our thumbs.
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