This is the beginning of a much larger post about reciprocity (in sociobiology reciprocal altruism), which has been lovely to experience. My notes:
- Juli and Andrea make arrangements for Charlie to attend private school.
- When Juli’s Se Habla La Paz school loses two large windows, Charlie and I show up to help with clean up. David, Rachel, Anastasia, and Belim also show up. David takes the lead on window extraction, while we others sweep and shovel glass.
- David slices his ankle to the bone on a piece of glass, shows little reaction, and lets us know he’ll stitch himself up later. I help with bandages and pressure. He shows me his thigh where once in the wilderness he sticked tendons and muscles after a particularly bad accident. I later learn that in addition to self-administering wilderness medicine, he is a licensed plumber and owner of a 57’ boat that he intends to run high-end fishing trips from. Turns out he’s also a decent carpenter and I’m guessing a few other trades.
- I offer to take him and his group to the beach, but he borrows Juli’s car.
- Charlie and I meet Frank, his sister, his nephen Kyle, and his girlfriend Evelyn in the lobby of One Hotel. They’re distraught, having escaped Cabo but now marooned in La Paz. I offer to drive them wherever they need, which this morning was the bus station and this afternoon the bank. They purchase tickets on flights on Saturday out of Loretto, a five-hour drive, and rent a car. They learn about the only bank that has a functioning ATM, and we all go there to replenish diminishing supplies (for me, $5000 MXN = $377 USD).
- Frank’s sister, a nurse anesthesiologist, digs a glass splinter out of my finger.
- Frank, a North Carolinian surfer and carpenter, can’t stop thanking me.
- Juli can’t stop thanking David, Charlie and me.