I grew up in the country, and my dad routinely invited undocumented workers with whom he worked on the ranches to come to our house. We shared no common language (shame on us for not speaking Spanish when we live in Texas!), and we didn’t have “extra” room, but they ate with us then bedded down for the night in our hall. I hope I’d still follow my dad’s example if presented with a similar situation.

It was also not uncommon to get a knock on the door during a blizzard, and we knew it would be someone who ignored the signs for the closed highway who got stuck. We offered whatever we had because we know Karma is keeping score, so I have no doubt that’s what has led to the many kindnesses of strangers that I’ve benefitted from.

You make a lot of good points! Me being a woman does help gain peoples’ trust for sure. But like you noted, I do think there is a lot to be said for intuition about people. We always judge people by looking in their eyes, and that has served us fairly well when dealing with strangers on our travels. It’s a hard situation, because you want to trust people, but in the West we are brought up to be very guarded towards people we don’t know. Even after this happened to us, we would like to say we would take people into our home, but it is hard to know what we would do until it actually happens. Regardless, we certainly owe the universe a good deed in return!

Thanks Christopher!

Though I also wonder if you weren’t a couple would there have been the same outcome if it were just a lone man wandering by in need of shelter. People seem to place more trust in a couple than a lone wanderer, more so a lone male wanderer. There goes my cynicism again.

That being said I do feel that if you have good intentions about you, if you’re a good person, not seeking to bamboozle or harm people. People can pick up on that and may be more inclined to help.