Tale of a random act of kindness from a biking trip in California

Something interesting happened on Sunday while I was on one of my biking adventures late at night, far away from home. Unfortunately, my phone died, and in this tech savvy world, when tech walks out you end up wandering all night. I lost GPS connectivity, below a crazy flyover intersection almost tearing out, I walked along with my bike slowly and landed near an IKEA store which was about to close.

An IKEA store worker who was almost about to leave offered me his battery pack generously. After a few minutes, when the phone booted up; I called an UberX as there weren’t UberXL available then. The Uber driver turned out to be a middle-aged Indian man. My first impression was yes, of course, he will help me get out of this trouble, same country, same culture, etc. Instead, he refused to board my bike, making an excuse that it wouldn’t fit and left.

The same IKEA worker (Mexican by descent), who was watching all of this from a distance offered to give me a ride back home in his car. I was concerned as his vehicle was smaller than the UberX that had just left. However, he got a rope from the store and loaded my bike in. I was also a bit hesitant to take his favor as I had no money or a token of appreciation to thank him. But, since there wasn’t any choice before me, I asked him to drop me to the nearest BART station.

We barely understood each other’s accent, but there was certainly a voice of humanity speaking for us. I will always cherish this moment as one of the most valuable ones of my excursions. At the BART station, I wished him good luck and thanked him. Tears rolled down as he left!

I sit today questioning WHY don’t we recognize these acts of kindness? WHY is racism rated above humanity?

And, then we believe in the stereotypes,
And, then we stress so much on *our* culture *our* people,
And, then we want to build the walls to separate the inseparable human beings.

Also, I now have a decent phone and a battery pack in my minimalistic lifestyle, all for my love for biking adventures!