The Kindness of Strangers

Don't Worry - be Happy!

Travelling around exploring new places all the time quite often leaves you at the mercy of others. Needing to know how to get somewhere, where is the best place to buy something or when a certain activity is on means that you are always in conversation with people you have never met and that you quite often base a lot of trust on what they have to say. 

Sometimes this can be quite un-nerving and sometime it can be exceptionally rewarding - one of those times for us was yesterday.

In need of doing a shop we were up bright and early and made our way down to the main intersection leaving the Marina. It's a pretty long walk to the supermarket from that point still and sadly 9 times out of 10 you do need to walk as the strip of road is not a main bus route. We started on our way only to be stopped buy a guy asking if we needed a taxi, the gut reaction kicked in. Taxi = Expensive, so 'No thanks' and we walked on. Yet the guy drove along side us and with a great smile on his face said: "Ah I'm only jokin' wid you - hop in, no charge. Where you heading?"

A stranger offering lift? Now that brings back all kinds lessons drummed into you as kid about strangers but it was a long walk and hey, if we ended up having to give the guy a few dollars it was no bother. We jumped in and so began our time with 'Sugar-Ray'.

Happy and friendly we chatted back and forth about what we were doing that day -shopping and finding a hairdresser- and then he enquired where we were from and proceeded to tell us how he had lived in London for 6 yrs to save up and buy his local business.. "I will show you" he says, and off we zoom, still a little uncomfortable, to Ray's Tyre shop. He shows us around, introduces us as his new friends and then he drives us over to the Shopping Centre. It's money time, or so we think but,  "I'll wait for you guys here if you like and then we can go to the Barber's - i know a great guy". 

Humm what to do - this guy has been nothing buy kind and helpful but yet all our instincts are telling us to break away somehow, that this will not end well. It's at that point where we both realised how un-trusting we are, how security and safty aware we had become doing this trip. With so much unknown and so many story of attacks, kidnappings etc we had let all the hype get to us and become so un-trusting of everyone. It sucked so after a quick shop and a new energy we jumped back in the car and it was onwards to the Barber. 

As we drove we all talked of live and love of travels and adventures and leant all about 'Sugar-Ray'. He had had some major accidents in his life (a car crash let to 12 broken bones, cracked skull and ruptured stomach), leaving him un-able to move his knee and heavily scarred; but to him that meant he was the luckiest person alive. So in turn he wanted to make other have the best life possible and, luckily for us, that meant showing a young travelling couple the 'real' Grenada. We met his local barber and his pastor before he then insisted on taking us back to his house to show us around and share a beer. We tried local blood sausage (sadly still gross), met his neighbours and chatted out on his balcony for ages until... "Mon i gotta go. I have work in an hour".

He still insited on dropping us all the way home and even invited us to dinner next week. On the way back we quickly stopped off at his girlfriends work as our last stop. Gorgeous and obviously in love with him but "Shhh" he says, "My wife would not like it". I guess even the kindest people have flaws.

Tia and Jarvis, Over and Out!