Paying it forward – the kindness of strangers

Years ago when I was travelling overseas I got myself into trouble and had to rely on the kindness of a stranger – a friend of my father’s, who didn’t know me but took me into his home because of the strength of his friendship with my dad. When I went back to the same place, it was in his home that I stayed again. I’ll never forget, that when I was down, showing me what he was growing in his garden gave me such a lift. Perhaps he reminded me of my own dad who has such green thumbs and has always enjoyed giving life to plants in a garden. I was always welcomed like a daughter by my father's friend, and to this day I remember his whole family with fondness, though I never write or even call. Occasionally I may catch up with him or his wife when I happen to be at my father’s house and they call. I bring this up because I’ve been thinking about how I am now paying his kindness forward. Granted, in hosting Workawayers we are exchanging their labour for accommodation and meals. But not all working and living conditions or hosts are the same. We tend to show a spirit of generosity and hospitality towards these young travellers.

We had the privilege of welcoming and hosting a young couple from Montreal on a Workaway stint a couple of weeks ago – coinciding with the Easter weekend. At first I was hesitant when Philip read their email to me. We’d had such a great time with our older Workaway guest that I didn’t think younger travellers could measure up. I'm happy to say I was wrong. I feel travelling particularly when you’re young is character forming. You certainly find out who you are when not among your own kin.

Myriam and Olivier had been in New Zealand when they contacted us, hoping to spend some time in the Dandenongs. Philip was impressed because they’d actually taken the time to read our profile and directed their enquiry to specifics. We get so many general enquiries that have been sent to so many other hosts. We agreed to the stay – the timing was right as we had no paying guests booked in the BnB. They were to catch the Skybus from the airport and Philip would meet them at Southern Cross station. They arrived late one night and we made our introductions over a cuppa and a glass of milk.

Both employed on the bloody big hole

A cleaning task

Olivier proved a steady worker

Making sucre de la creme - a more crumbly fudge, which is a Quebecois specialty

Slowly, as we got to know them, we learned that their Workaway place in New Zealand hadn’t quite gone according to plan. There were working with a dozen others at a self-sufficient ‘rustic’ farm – self-sufficient they told us meant that there was no electricity, and the little internet data bought by the family was not shared with Workawayers. Disappointed, they had left their accommodation, and slept in a van with another friend. I was appalled that a young woman had slept in a van. Putting myself in Myriam’s shoes, I would not have liked the experience at all. Cold and cramped in a van, with no toilet. A long time ago, I did happen to spend one night sleeping (or trying to) in a World War II bunker on an uninhabited island, where there were no amenities; where in the morning sucking on a Fisherman’s Friend (a throat lozenge) sufficed for brushing my teeth. But that was one night cramped with a group of many strangers in a bunker…

I asked Myriam whether travelling together had put a strain on their relationship. On the contrary she replied, it had strengthened it because they were spending so much time together – something they didn’t experience back home. While Myriam had completed her course of study, Olivier had decided to change his field. They were going to be enjoying one long summer, for by the time they returned home for either study or work, the Northern hemisphere would be in Summer.

Enjoying some of that crumbly fudge - of course with a glass of milk

A surrogate family

As Myriam and Olivier settled in, they fell in with the rhythm of our ordinary days. They would usually help themselves to breakfast, while I prepared lunches and dinners. (I love feeding people but sometimes it takes up too much of my day.) They cleaned and tidied after themselves, contributing to household chores such as loading and unloading the dishwasher, even without being asked. I felt rather spoiled…In between their chores for Philip, they had time to visit the sights of the neighbourhood, and one evening we took them to see a French film (as the French Film Festival was in town) and treated them to dinner afterwards at a family restaurant. To our surprise they expressed enjoyment in spending time ‘en famille’. Philip also made time to take them to see the native animals at Healesville Sanctuary (every foreigner wants to see a kangaroo); and as well, Olivier accompanied him to watch his local football team play at AAMI stadium, while Myriam and I were happy to hang together, not-together, at home.

I’ve taken the attitude (and I know Philip shares it) that had they been my kids overseas I’d want them safe and happy, enjoying themselves among strangers. We’re not strange to each other now. But it is the differences, the ‘strange’ that help us to bond in the beginning, as we talk about how you live compared to what you are experiencing now. Or even as you try and master the nuances of language in translation. These bright young adults are bi-lingual in French and English, and so down to earth. It may sound trite but they are such good upstanding young adults. Any parent would be proud. I feel so full of optimism and enthusiasm having had the pleasure of their company for those few days.

Myriam and Olivier have moved on and at the moment we’re hosting two young men who were born in Germany and live in a little village outside Frankfurt. Sharif’s ancestors are from Palestine, while Tariq’s originate from Turkey. They have been close friends since the fifth grade and tell me there’s another friend whose parents are from Afghanistan, who will join them later during the year on their big adventure around Australia.

Doesn’t the world contract to hear about these three friends? You don’t need Facebook – migration brings different communities together and they are held by a language and customs foreign to their ancestors. The boys consider themselves as in-between cultures (neither German nor Middle Eastern). Much like me - I'm also in the liminal. Over meals we become better acquainted. I had an interesting first hand account of Ramadan over lunch one day. It makes you think deeply about the person growing his spirituality, rather than being confronted by a foreign incomprehensible religion.

Sharif and Tariq will travel north, working when they can, and by next New Year’s eve plan to be in Sydney – because after all that is where it all happens New Year’s Eve. They have only been in Melbourne for a few days – are at the very beginning of their journey, which they are documenting on video, so family members can enjoy vicariously, but also as a kind of memoir to look back on when they’re older.

The boys ended up spending 9 days and 10 nights with us and probably worked for about three full days and a couple of half days. On their 'off' days they were left to their own distractions. Tariq tells me that he applied to come to Ferny Creek because of the lush verdure of our garden, and for someone who lives in a flat it's been a welcome change. The work has been tough on both. They had never used garden tools, or dug a hole. They have also marveled at Philip's ingenuity. According to Sharif he has a solution for all the problems that come along, whereas kids of his generation rely on Google.(Older people too rely on Google these days, I piped in.) I'm uncertain what they will take away, destined as they are for white collar work. They may decide on account of their stay with us that garden work, particularly digging holes, is not something they want to make a habit - even while on holiday. 

The hole keeps getting bigger

Sharif and Tariq enjoying some of the familiar tastes of home, such as hummus and a favourite, olive oil

Sharif recording on his Go-Pro

Ingenuity to get the digger on a higher ground - and congratulating themselves that the two planks worked

Papa bear on his lonesome contemplating the work ahead without his Workawayers

Happy in my own backyard

Heinrich Zimmer uncovered a story from the Khassidischen Bucher of Martin Buber, which seems to represent the "archetypal" reason for travelling. The story is about a rabbi called Eisik who resides in Cracow, and who has a recurring dream of a voice telling him to travel to Prague to look for a treasure under the bridge of a castle.  After the dream is repeated three times, the rabbi decides to listen to the inner voice and make the journey.  When Eisik arrives in Prague, he finds the castle guarded and dares not approach.  Instead he loiters until he attracts the attention of the captain of the guards, who asks him, and not unkindly, what he is doing there.  The rabbi tells him of the dream and of the voice that prompted his adventure.  The guard laughs and tells him about his own inner voice in a dream, which had told him to travel to Cracow to find the house of a rabbi called Eisik, where he would subsequently find a treasure buried behind a stove in a forgotten corner of his house.  The rabbi thanks the guard; then travels back to his own house and looks behind the stove to discover the treasure.

            

Zimmer comments that the real treasure is not very far away; certainly we need not travel and search for it in a distant country.  'It lies buried in the most intimate part of our house; that is of our own being.  It is behind the stove, the centre of life and warmth that rules our existence, the heart of our heart, if only we knew how to unearth it.'

            

Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz learns much the same thing, to not go looking for her dreams or her heart in any one else’s back yard but her own.  And if she can't find it there, well she never lost it to begin with.

As a young girl, unlike Dorothy I was happy in my own suburban backyard, on the outskirts of Melbourne. I would lay in the banana lounge chair, skin oiled, book or imagination wide open, and travel in my book or reveries, while my dog lay beside. While my friends made their grand European journeys and sent back their postcards (many of which I appreciated and still have), I never felt the compulsion to leave my own backyard.  Once the summer passed and I resumed studies at university, friends would assume by my tan that I’d traveled far and had many adventures. I’d smile and keep my inner journeys to myself…

It was only as a woman in my early thirties that I felt restless, as though my heart lay elsewhere, beckoning.  A house under the beautiful Mountain Ash Gothic in the Dandenongs wasn’t enough.  I would often climb onto the roof when my husband Ed cleaned the gutters, and sit to stare up at the sky and wonder about what was beyond. Tall trees pushed the sky further away, much as I felt further away from my heart.  One of our favourite pastimes was for Ed to put on a carousel of his slides, for unlike me he had traveled widely, mainly through Australia and had amassed a huge collection; and along to the music of Copland, I would travel with him in my armchair. However, I left my backyard and went in search of my heart, which I thought was ‘over there’ on the island where I was born. It took many journeys back and forth to realize that my heart had never been lost. Perhaps confused but never lost.  Of course, in the process I lost my backyard and Ed.  I felt like a fool. Yet, I needed the reflection of the self found by encountering ‘the stranger’.  

The archetypal or spiritual journey is usually for self discovery, or remembering our own treasure, not to tick another item on your ‘to do or to see’ list.  More recently, on a train coming back from Giverny in France, I overheard some tourists discussing their list – the next stop for them was Montmartre which they needed to see to tick off – and it was not unlike our own list I thought wryly to myself. I couldn’t be bothered traipsing the many steps to get to Montmartre that afternoon and fortunately, we got lost. 

Travelling with a list of sights to see or experiencing the trip behind the lens of your camera, because you want the ‘proof’ that you were there and it’s not even to collect into an album anymore, but to post on Facebook. It is rather like experiencing the new or strange as an automaton. Where is your Self in all of it?  When you feel the need to get away, what is it you want to get away from?  I knew when I suggested that particular getaway that I wanted to get away from myself, but also to find a connection to that self, as I approached one of those 'big' birthdays. I hadn’t anticipated that we would get away as far as Europe.

I’ve been pondering what travel ‘means’ to me because this year the Melbourne Scarf Festival has this question as its theme for the scarf makers, and I usually contribute a couple of entries.  It may not be terribly exciting but what it ‘means’ is remembering and savouring the treasures from my own backyard because now I know where that backyard is.  Like the duke Des Esseintes in Huysman’s  A Rebours I understand how wearing it is to actually make the journey to not only discover that I’ve brought myself along as baggage, but that I could just have easily made the journey in my armchair. One need never leave home.  For instance, in my armchair in front of the computer I can get much closer to the many treasures in the Louvre without queuing for hours, without feeling dehydrated because I've been forced to dump my water bottle, without getting lost, without being pushed, without someone blocking my view, without another saying that I’m ruining her photo by being in front of the painting when I actually get an opportunity to get up close.  In my armchair, I can get a closer view of the Mona Lisa than I did being in the same room.

A play on the postcards we send back home or keep for our own memories

Making use of the eucalyptus leaves collected from my backyard

First experiment, Nuno felt on China silk 

We often dismiss children and adolescents as not being very ‘worldly’ but sometimes we don’t need to have seen or been in the world to know what it is we want, or are.  As we get older, it is then that we lose our spiritual connection to things, including what’s in our own hearts.  It is usually then that we think, or someone has led us to believe that the grass is greener or more exotic on the other side.  Of course, what we discover when we get there is the mud, or the dust, the heat, the mosquitoes, the sand flies, the one thousand steps we need to climb…  It is never as we anticipated…That girl on the banana lounge with her dog beside, was much wiser than I ever gave her credit. 

The story of Eisik is recounted by Mircea Eliade in Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries, Translation Philip Maires (1975, pp244-5: N.Y.: Harper Torchbooks).