I was 19 and travelling by myself for the first time. It was 1994 and departure tax wasn\u2019t always part of a plane ticket, so it sometimes had to be paid before flying out of a country. And if you didn\u2019t have it, you didn\u2019t leave \u2013 something I was about to learn the hard way.<\/p>\n
I was on a five-week trip around South America that I\u2019d spent years saving for, visiting the pen pals I\u2019d written to as a teenager. At the airport in San Jos\u00e9, Costa Rica, I was waiting in line for customs when I realised the border guard was asking those ahead of me to pay US$5 in departure tax \u2013 money I didn\u2019t have. It doesn\u2019t seem like a lot now but it was back then. I\u2019d flown in from New York\u2019s JFK airport two days previously and the only ATM had been out of order, so I hadn\u2019t been able to get cash out there, and I\u2019d spent my remaining few dollars on an overnight stay in the city.<\/p>\n
I tried to argue in appalling Spanish, and tried to offer my bank card and traveller\u2019s cheques, but the border guard shook his head and told me it was cash only. There was no ATM at the airport and it was a Saturday, so the banks were closed. This being the 90s, there were no phones or internet to call for help. He waved me away and served the next person in line.<\/p>\n
I stood there a little stunned, my stomach dropping. My ticket took me to Panama, then Chile and eventually on to Bolivia. If I missed this flight, all my subsequent flights would have been cancelled. Just as I was starting to catastrophise, a very poised woman who had been a couple of spots behind in the line handed me the money as she walked past. \u201cHere you go,\u201d she said, with no fuss. \u201cI\u2019ve been in a similar situation before.\u201d And barely giving me time to thank her, she walked past me and into customs.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t find her in the departure area but I really hope that I had expressed how grateful I was in the small moment she spoke to me. She handed me a lifeline when I felt as though everything was about to fall apart, without expecting any praise.<\/p>\n
That small act had massive consequences for me and, cliched as it sounds, it was a moment that shaped how I saw life. It wasn\u2019t the first or last small kindness I have received but it\u2019s the one I think of whenever I despair about people and the world.<\/p>\n
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