A lesson from Venezuela

This is the bus station in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela. It's a pretty sketchy place, especially after all the little shops close up at 9pm. But it is the departure point for all buses to Caracas, so it was where I needed to be. I had specifically booked a seat on the 9:15pm Aeroexpresos Ejecutivos bus that arrives in Caracas nine hours later. The company has its own terminal in a nice part of Caracas, and given that I'm a girl, I'm traveling alone and I'm spanish-language-challenged, I did NOT want to find myself at one of the capital city's less salubrious bus stations, at dawn, exhausted, trying to find a cab that wouldn't rob me.

So there I was, sitting in the Ciudad Bolivar bus station on Thursday night. All was going well, until the 9:30pm bus showed up. Passengers waiting for the 9:15pm bus got extremely agitated and several stormed off to the ticket office, with me trailing in their wake. There was only one attendant working there, and by the time I reached her, she was surrounded by upset Venezuelans. Amidst the wild gesticulating and extremely rapid spanish, I managed to learn that the 9:15pm bus had been involved in some kind of unspecified accident and was completely cancelled. I quickly asked the attendant if my ticket would be good for the following night (the answer was yes). Then, noticing that everything in the station was suddenly closed up, including the phone bank, I dashed off to try and figure out how I could call the Posada La Casita where I'd been staying so they could pick me up.

I was pretty scared at this point. It's one thing to be alone, waiting on a bus, with a whole bunch of other people in a busy bus station, no matter how seedy that station is. It's quite another to be alone, in a rapidly deserting bus station, in a bad part of town, with no phone, no internet and very poor language skills.

But that is when something remarkable happened. One kid, noticing my desperation, quickly led me to a working telephone and I successfully reached the Posada. I stammered my thanks to the kid, and gave the telephone owner a couple of Bolivares to cover the cost. Then, as I headed towards the parking lot to wait for the pick-up, another Venezuelan guy stopped me. Noticing my blank look, he switched from Spanish into English and told me that I needed to get the attendant at the ticket office to change my now defunct ticket for a new ticket immediately, otherwise it might not be valid the next day. He even showed me what she'd written on his ticket so I knew what to ask for. After thanking him, I went back to the ticket office and got the attendant to make the change on my ticket. Then a lady stopped me, gesticulating that I needed a stamp on the ticket to make it official. She then proceeded to badger the attendant on my behalf until my ticket was properly accredited. I thanked her, and moved back toward the parking lot. There, yet another lady stopped me, and asked repeatedly if I had someone to pick me up from the station, if I was going to be okay, if I needed any help. She even waited there by my side until Oscar from the posada arrived to whisk me back to safety.

That was four different strangers who each took it upon themselves to help me without me ever asking a single one of them for help. Four strangers who noticed that I probably didn't have a clue what was going on, that I was a foreigner, alone and stranded in a dodgy place. Four strangers who took it upon themselves to approach me and help me out and make sure I was safe. I have never been so humbled in my life.

As my adrenaline levels started returning to normal, I realized that I'd never seen such a thing happen in London or New York. Yes, if people ask you for help, of course you help. But it never even occurred to me, whenever subways shut down, or trains were delayed, or buses were cancelled, to look around and see if any of my fellow would-be passengers were in trouble. If any of them were foreigners who had no idea how things work in the US. If any of them didn't know how to ask for help, but desperately needed it. But I tell you what, I will definitely be keeping an eye out for them from now on.