Generosity - #56HT

Zagreb. The Capital of Croatia, the kind of urban city that I was avoiding in my trip. Despite it, I can't really explain you, but I had such a great intuition about my first experience in a Croatian City.

I've sent few Couchsurfing requests but nobody was able to host us this night, we were probably going to end up in a hostel and explore the city. 

After exchanging our Euros to Croatian Kunas we accepted to meet up a Croatian gentleman that couldn't host us because he already had some guest for this night.

This meeting made me have the most generous experience that I had in my trip and one of that I had in my life traveling. My experience without meeting Nikola wouldn't be the same. He was a 50 years old guy with a huge heart. New in Couchsurfing, he was very sorry for not being able to host us.

He met us up to have a beer and during this talk he offered to walk with us to search for a hostel, once he knew the city he could give us good advices. In our journey walking during few minutes stopping in some hotels, he just recommended us to stay in a nice hostel really well located.

It was already kind from him in this Easter's eve that he spent time with us to help us finding a place that we could sleep. While I was talking with Cris, Nikola just invited us to stay in the hostel without we notice it. Exactly, he paid the stay for both of us in Zagreb. I can't describe how big was this generosity for me. He was sorry for not hosting 2 travelers that he just met less than 1h before and just invited us to sleep in a hostel without expecting anything back.

He wasn't a rich guy. Nikola was a professor that was living a Zagreb, having a nice life, but not a fancy one. Despite it, he shared part of what he had with us, two backpackers. It's not just about the value, but also for the intention in helping. 

Seriously, this kind of moment is the one that make me I believe how great being humans can be. Everything would be about sharing. We are basically the same, humans, people that were fertilized and born. Humans that are living and one day will die and just become piece of organic material afterwards. But depending where you were born, you're going to have more opportunities in your life than other people and even not having so much more, you're still able to share with people that have less.

By lucky you're going to have clean water to drink or not;

By lucky you're going to have a warm and safe place to sleep or not;

By lucky you're going to live in a peaceful country or another one that is in war;

By lucky you're going to have the opportunity to study or not;

By lucky you're going to meet your parents or not;

By lucky you were born in democratic country or in a dictatorship; 

By lucky you're in your warm bed watching Netflix eating your popcorn or you're country is having a war that you're obligated to leave your country losing everything and needing to walk thousand kilometers until find a place that you can be a refugee and once you're there people still discriminate you.

Sometimes we don't need to give money to someone, once we have more privileges than him or her. Sometimes to spend sometime giving attention, talking, sharing some food, a place to stay, drinks or even a cigarette can make they feel how equal we are, even social-economic different.

Before seeing someone that had fewer privileges than you just think that it's also a being human that share a perfect resemblance with you. Like when you see a guy in the highway asking for a ride or a guy begging money in the street.

You probably cross these people and you're not even able to realize that it's a being human and luckily you were born with more privileges than this person. But dude, everything is about luck, this guy could be you. We can call it as empathy: feel yourself in someone's life.