This blog was written by Global Gap Fellow Geneva Jones.
It would be impossible to describe my experience in Mexico City with any semblance of accuracy without mentioning the incredible kindness of strangers. It has been a defining characteristic of my time here, and one that has played a primary role in my service as a Global Gap Year Fellow. And of course, I can’t talk about the kindness of strangers without talking about Sergio and Aline.
I was eating dinner at one of the neighborhood restaurants I had come to frequent due to its proximity to my hostel and its reasonable prices. While I was sitting on the patio enjoying my sirloin quesadilla and horchata, the tiny white dog of the couple sitting next to me kept wandering over to say hi. As a fan of tiny dogs with ponytails, I waved away the couple’s admonishments of the dog and their calls for her to return back to their table. Really, it’s Lily the tiny Maltese I have to thank for the incredibly lucky introduction to Sergio and Aline.I soon get to chatting with the couple, who ask me what I’m doing in Mexico. I give them the GGYF spiel and tell them I’m in Mexico to be a volunteer, but I haven’t found where I was going to do that yet. They exchange a look and then inform me that the husband, Sergio, actually works for the national Mexican nonprofit Ayuda en Accion that does work with education, children’s services, migrant support, indigenous rights, and environmental advocacy. My jaw dropped– I had discovered Ayuda en Accion in my laborious quest to find a placement and I had noted it as one of the top organizations I was interested in working with. Sergio goes on to tell me that the two main branches in Mexico City specifically work with children and migrants, the two types of service I was most interested in engaging with. What are the odds that tiny Lily’s father could offer the perfect pathway into the service I was most interested in?
At that point, they end up inviting me to join them for dinner at their table. I am overjoyed to finally have some human interaction after a week of isolating hostel life and I practically leap into their arms. Our conversation evolves into descriptions of our lives and families, and I was proud of myself for keeping up the conversation in my less than perfect Spanish. They may be my parents’ age, but that did not stop us from becoming fast friends. We end up eating and talking together for about three hours, or until 11:30pm– an unthinkable time to my American brain. We exchange contact information and I promise to reach out later in the week.
A few days later I decided to text the wife, Aline, to see if she would like to accompany me to a museum. She responded that she was so excited to hear from me and that she would love to go with me. We ended up going to the Diego Rivera museum at Anahuacalli, which to this day remains one of my favorite places I’ve visited in the city so far. We’re remarkably similar spirits, aligned in our views of art and politics and life. She then takes me to where she grew up, Coyoacan. Mexico City is a myriad of cities and towns in a trench coat trying to convince you it’s all one city, and Coyoacan is one of those towns. It was absolutely magical. The stunning colonial architecture took my breath away, and I loved exploring the incredible artisan market. We finished our adventure with some churros and hot chocolate, the first thing she let me pay for all day. I returned to my hostel with my heart and stomach full and my homesickness eased, as Aline reminds me so much of my mom.
Since then, they like to joke that they’ve adopted me. I’ve been to family dinners and met Aline’s brother and her fiance, been given a few salsa lessons, and have not been permitted to pay for anything. I can’t properly articulate how thankful I am to have found a family in this foreign city or for the companionship and care they have provided.
I also can’t possibly talk about the kindness of strangers without talking about Adrian. I was on my way to an incredible Japanese restaurant I had discovered the week before which was around thirty minutes by bus from the hostel I was staying at. On said bus, I began to realize that just because this bus was going the direction I was going from the stop I was at did not in fact mean that it was the correct bus for me to take. As we continued to pass stops I didn’t recognize, I decided to just get off at the next stop and reroute from there. My confusion must have shown on my face as the middle aged man sitting next to me asked me where I was supposed to be going because he could tell I was lost. As I explained my situation and my plan to get off at the next stop and figure it out from there, he firmly shook his head. He told me he couldn’t allow me to do that in good conscience because the bus had taken us into a dangerous area and he couldn’t let me walk around alone at night. Despite my protests, he insisted on accompanying me in the right direction. As we walked to another bus stop together, I looked around and realized he was absolutely right. I would not have felt safe walking alone at night there.
We begin talking and it turns out he lived outside of my hometown of Charlotte for over eleven years! I couldn’t believe the incredible coincidence. Despite further protests he insisted on taking me all the way to the restaurant even though it was out of his way. It became obvious that I reminded him of his daughter who is a few years older than me, and his paternal instincts couldn’t let me brave the journey myself. Once we arrive, he asks for my WhatsApp and tells me to contact him if I ever need anything at all. I still get texts checking in on me and asking how I’m doing even weeks later.
In conclusion, the kindness of strangers is how I’ve met some of my best friends and also how I finally found a placement in Mexico City. I’m so incredibly thankful for the compassion and open-heartedness they’ve shown me, and they have ingrained my belief that Mexico City is the best place in the world.