Little and BIG Acts of Kindness (AOK)

Disclaimer: The following post has been edited to protect the identities of the people we are writing about.  In some incidences information has been left out or changed, however, the actual acts of kindness have not been.

We have met some wonderful people since moving to Mexico.  The term “it takes a village” is not just about raising children, but about really helping thy neighbor.  From asking a question on a forum or blog, to meeting someone for the first time and embracing each other with a hug.  It has all been amazing.

This post is really about acknowledging and saying “thank you” to the people that demonstrated little and BIG acts of kindness, which we will refer to as AOK.

AOK 1: One of the first things we did when we arrived in Mexico

was to head straight to our bank to withdraw pesos from the ATM.  We can remember this as if it were yesterday. It was the Saturday, over the Mexican Independence Day holiday weekend. This meant that the bank would not be open again until the following Tuesday. Without getting into the details and boring you to tears, the ATM gave us the pesos we ordered, provided a receipt of the transaction, but ate (kept) our ATM card.  YUP, the machine completely shut down, including a blank screen and everything! Now, imagine if you will, being in a foreign country on your first day of arrival. You don’t know anyone and you don’t know the language…and this happens! Sheer terror whipped thru our hearts and minds.  To say we were in PANIC would be a gross understatement. 

The only thing we could think of was to post our situation on the Playa.info forum and hope someone responded.  And respond they did!  The kindness, suggestions and recommendations poured in.  Everyone was so supportive and understanding.  Our stress levels started to go down as we realized we were not alone and that it really was not the end of the world.  But there were two responses in particular that continue to stand out in our minds.  

Respondent #1, we will call, Mr. and Mrs. M & P, sent us a private message thru the forum giving us the dates they would be returning back to Mexico (they live here 6 to 9 months out of the year), and offered to bring us our new ATM cards. Obviously, we would have to contact our bank to cancel our cards and have new cards reissued. But the fact that these complete strangers offered to help us like this created such a feeling of gratitude.  By the way, we have met Mr. and Mrs. M & P and they are the type of people that would take the shirts off their backs to help someone.

Respondent #2, we will call Mr. B is always calm, intelligent, level-headed and full of sage wisdom and sound advice.  He posted his recommendation directly on the forum and explained in details what to do and say once we got to the bank on Tuesday morning.  The tone and confidence of his recommendation was so comforting.  When we got to the bank and managed to identify an English speaking (sort of) representative, we calmly explained our situation, showed them the bank transaction receipt, asked for our ATM card back, and waited.  After several attempts to communicate back in forth, the representative took our Id’s, went and got our ATM card, and gave it back to us!  WHEW…what a relief!

The point we are trying to make is that we asked for help and received it, from people we had never met in person.  And although we did a follow-up post on the forum to let everyone know the outcome and thank everyone, we really don’t think they understood the gravity and depth of our gratitude that day!  So again, with much gratitude, THANK YOU!

AOK 2: Shopping was a big part of moving to Mexico.  Buying

things to make our living space feel like home was important to us.  We walked and shopped all over Mexico, using taxi services to haul all our fabulous finds back to our home.  On this one occasion, we had purchased a glass top desk, which came in a huge box.  After we paid for the desk and waited curbside for a cab (guess we should have gotten delivery service), we were hoping one of those SUV type cabs would come along. Unfortunately, there was none in sight. But along come Mr. Cabbie in his regular size cab.  He does not really speak any English, but he manages to communicate that he would take us and our large box home.  He just kept saying “no hay problema”.

The poor man twisted and turned, trying to fit our box into his car.  At one point, he broke a latch on his car, but that did not stop him.  He just shrugged his shoulders until he figured out a way to secure the box in his trunk safely so that he could take us home.  Maybe it’s not what he did so much as how he did it.  We even offered to help pay for the damage to his latch, but he flat out refused.  The kindness and genuine act of helping was so authenticate.  It really made an impression on us!

AOK 3: This final AOK really demonstrates the power of selflessness.  We will call them Mr. and Mrs. B & M.  We met Mr.and Mrs. B & M thru a couple of different forums we are members of. During one of our question and answer dialogues back and forth, we mentioned to Mr. and Mrs. B & M that we were looking at buying a condo in a particular area.  They reminded us that they live in an area that we might like and encouraged us to put their community on our research list.  At first, we really didn’t think much about it because we were so focused on one area and knew that is where we wanted to live if we decided to purchase.  But then we decided it wouldn’t do any harm to explore Mr. and Mrs. B & M's community, so we let them know that we would be coming to their community to do some research.  We further explained that we would send them a follow-up email to let them know what we thought of the area.  Well, Mr. and Mrs. B & M actually met us at the bus stop the day of our research trip to greet us and take us on a community tour!  We had described each other enough, plus our small photos on the forum helped us to identify each other.  It was such a kind gesture on their part and a wonderful surprise for them to meet us with wide smiles and a warm hug. 

BOY, we immediately fell in love with the area and quickly learned that we could get more bang for our buck if we became serious buyers in this area. As Mr. and Mrs. B & M showed us around, they spoke with us about the things they enjoyed about their community of 9 years.  This was so odd because we felt as if we had known them for years.  We continued to walk, talk and take photos of lots of property signs; collecting realtor information.  At the end of the day, we thanked them profusely for their time, embraced like dear old friends, and left. 

But the wheels were turning now.  Our minds were spinning with new possibilities. In fact, we stayed up all night talking about it and decided to go back to Mr. and Mrs. B & M’s community. This time, we met with a real estate agent.  We really wanted to seriously explore all our options so that we could make an informed decision.  After spending the day with an agent, we were totally psyched about the possibilities. We decided to go back again to Mr. and Mrs. B & M’s community two or three times just to walk around by ourselves, research, and take more photos.  After spending all that time there, we decided we wanted to go for it and purchase one of the places we had looked at with the agent.  But, there was a catch…we had planned a short trip back to the United States and had to leave Mexico within a few days.  We still had so many questions about a couple of properties, and limited ways to follow-up until our return…until…Mr. and Mrs. B & M came to our rescue!

Now when we say rescue, we want to make this perfectly clear. 

We don’t mean sending a couple of emails with basic information, on our behalf.  This is what we mean.  Mr. and Mrs. B & M took time out of their vacation to go and look at properties for us.  They found property managers with keys and went inside different properties to take extensive measurements, photos and make very detailed notes.  They made recommendations for repairs and painting, and went to stores and got prices of items to be purchased and replaced.  And when we say prices, we mean prices, product/serial numbers, sizes, colors, etc…including taking even more pictures. They continued to keep us posted on new listings, spoke with property managers about best pricing strategies, if and when we wanted to present an offer to a developer, and spoke with real estate agents in our behalf.  They did all this and so much more, day after day, to help us.  They were our eyes and ears when we could not be.  In essence, they were (are) our hero and shero!

The bottom line is that they did all this without us asking, without any complaints or making us feel that we were wasting their time, and without expectation of compensation.  They were so gracious and generous with their time and resources!  Remember, these are people we did not know, and had only met them once in person!  Well, we have since purchased in the same community as Mr. and Mrs. B & M, and become close friends.

You know, God brings people into our lives for a reason.  Whether for a little while or a lifetime; we are truly grateful for the acts of kindness He has blessed us with.