Either I’m more pretty than I realize, I look more helpless than I am, or people are just a lot kinder than the U.S. thinks.
It was dark outside when my bus from Mendoza, Argentina, arrived at the Terminal Alameda in Santiago, Chile, on April 23, 2018. I’d just taken an all-day bus ride of stunning scenery and hairpin turns, and I needed to get myself to the hostel I had booked for my last few nights in South America. For the umpteenth time I heaved my “body bag” and daypack off the bus and encumbered myself with their weight. Actually, they didn’t feel that heavy since my body was used to carrying them around for the last month.
I navigated my way from the bus terminal to the metro and stumbled my way through learning I had to buy a Bip! metro card. Fortunately someone recognized my ineptitude at Spanish and helped me out in communicating with the person in the ticket booth.
Card in hand, I made my way to the red line and rode that to where the red and green lines cross at Baquedano. Once on the green line, I began thinking about whether I wanted to lug my stuff ~1 mile or catch a cab from the Ñuble station.
As I disembarked from the metro and made my way into the station, a 20-something year old Chilean man came up from behind me and gestured at my bags as he asked something about whether I needed a cab. Being tired – and less than fantastic at Spanish – I had him repeat and asked if he knew English. Nope.
He clearly was concerned about the size of my luggage, and I knew he couldn’t run away with my bags, so I allowed him to carry the body bag for a bit. When we reached a security officer, we stopped to see if he could help translate. Nope. Instead we had a conversation that went something like this but in Spanish.
“Where are you trying to go?”
“Ñuñoa Hostel. It’s new.”
“Where is it?”
As I pulled up the location on my phone, I recognized it would just complicate the situation more. Google wasn’t aware of the hostel because it was so new, so I seemed to be indicating I wanted to go to a random point on a road.
The security officer and random guy consulted with each other over my intended destination before again asking, “Do you need a cab?” They gestured at my luggage as if to say, “Of course you want a cab. You can’t carry all this!”
At this point I decided I wouldn’t have the energy to navigate myself there by foot, so I accepted my new friend’s offer to take me to the cab area. He still insisted on carrying my body bag.
When we got to the corner where cabs seemed to wait, my friend indicated I should wait by the fence with my bags while he asked the first cab. Before he approached the cab he asked me, “Do you have money?”
Although aware that I definitely had enough pesos for a cab, I let my travel-savvy side answer, “Yes, I have a little.” I didn’t think my friend was going to try anything, but it was better to be cautious.
As he chatted with the cabbie, I stood off to the side. For some reason they seemed to have a lot to discuss before ultimately my friend walked back over and indicated the driver wouldn’t take me. The cab left, empty. I remained on the corner, a bit confused.
My friend told me he’d ask another cab. A few minutes later he again asked if I had money, and I once again told him that I had a little. At this point my friend seemed a little annoyed with my answer, so we pulled out a phone to see if Google Translate could help us out.
When I saw Google’s translated question, I started to wonder about how “helpful” my friend really was being.
“You have gold to get your fate?” Google asked.
To me, that read like “I’m not spending my time helping you just to be nice. Do you have money for my work at getting you a cab or not?” Up until this point, my friend had seemed like he was just trying to help out the girl with the big bag. With these words I began wondering if he was actually trying to get money out of me. I had ignored that idea from the start because I was off the main metro line and away from the downtown area. But maybe I’d been wrong?
That’s when my U.S. American brain kicked in. I again told my “friend” that I had a little money. Then I told him that he didn’t need to get me a cab; despite it being dark out, I would walk.
As I started to heave my body bag across my shoulder, he indicated for me to wait while he talked to another cab. Not really wanting to stay and wait OR walk to the hostel, I waited. After a minute he waved me over to the cab and helped the cabbie load my bags. When he opened the door for me, I got in.
Through the open window I verified that he’d told the driver I wanted to go to Ñuñoa Hostel. Next, my friend reached in for a handshake, and then as he took his hand back, he smiled at me and knocked on the side of the car. With that, my cab started pulling away from the guy left smiling on the curb. The man who hadn’t asked me for any money for 15+ minutes of his help.
I started to feel sick.
I tracked our location as the cab made its way to my intended destination, and as we arrived, I started feeling even worse. “Cuánto cuesta?” I asked.
The cabbie smiled and shook his head, then indicated to the small pile of bills and coins in the cup holder.
Not wanting to believe it, I asked again, “How much?”
My driver opened the door to help me retrieve my bags from the car. Bags on the sidewalk and wallet still full of pesos, I watched the cab driver take off down the road. I couldn’t hold it in any more.
There on the sidewalk, I started crying. My friend really had just been trying to help the girl with the really big bag. He had been so concerned with helping me get to my hostel that not only had he carried my bag for me, but he had negotiated a fare and PAID my cab fare – because I had only told him that I had “a little” money.
My friend truly was a nameless friend. He hadn’t wanted any money at all; he just wanted to make sure I could get to my destination. I hated myself for having switched to the American mindset of doubt and mistrust. I was so upset that all I could do was stand there and feel ashamed as tears trickled down my face. (Even as I finally get around to writing this 1.5 years later, I’m fighting back emotion.) It was frustrating to recognize that my gut had been right to trust the helpful stranger.
I’m so fed up with Americans living with the belief that everyone is out to get everyone when that idea is Just. Plain. Wrong. Sure, I won’t always run into the purely helpful guy. I’m aware there are people in tourist destinations who will “help out” and then suggest how much they should be paid. It happened to me at the Santiago airport in October 2017.
But I’m going to push against the U.S. American in me next time and go with my gut feeling that there are good people in the world who really do just want to help the girl with the really big bag.
