The Perfect Stranger

Have you ever been so shocked and touched by an act of kindness from a complete and total stranger? One that left you to reflect on your own kindness and question whether you’ve been selfless enough? Well, its happened to me many times, but for some reason here in Salalah, its been happening almost…often? Someone, usually a stranger, does something entirely selfless for me.

We were being really adventuress this past weekend. We packed up our igloo on thursday night and when the sun rose we set off into the desert. It was beautiful. Romantic. The mountains, the trees, the sand and the beaches all seemed more perfect than the day before. Two hours into our drive, our eyes caught a glimpse of a distant a part of beach that was simply too gorgeous not to venture to. The only thing separating us and the beach was …..SAND of course (soft sand).

Without a thought we swerved to the right off the paved road and cut through into the beautiful sand. The exhiliration lasted 4 seconds, our tires never experienced it. The car wouldn’t move. The tires spun in the sand digging us deeper in. Reverse, nada, Drive, nada, Neutral, nada. Not a person in sight, no sign of civilization and we were stuck. Of course being a woman, a million thoughts ran through my head. "We’re gonna die here, there’s no cell phone reception, well at least we have water, ok so we’ll ration our sandwiches and worse come to worse we can walk to the beach and find fish until help comes?"

So, we got out of the car, and being rookies in the desert we tried to dig ourselves loose. Of course that didn’t work. Then we tried to push our car, our huge car. It didn’t budge, barely shook. Darn this brand new defiant car!. After 45 minutes and no more ideas we resigned to eat lunch... in the car. I thought to myself, but dared not say aloud "You call yourself Omani and can't get us out of the sand?" lol. Before I could finish my rationed sandwich, we heard another car. Hubby jumped out of the car to wave our saviour down. The car was going so fast, so furious, I thought for sure the guy in it didn't even see us! His car zigzagged through, passed us in seconds, practically skipping in the sand.  I could almost swear, I heard it whistle it was so happy. My mouth agape I thought “How the HECK can that, old beat up car go through the sand soooo easily and our brand new defiant car wont even crawl????!

By Gods Mercy, the car zigzags over to us, the driver rolls his window down to talk to Sam. A minute later the guy gets out of his car so excited, opens our door and shakes Sams hand smiling from ear to ear praising God and swears to help (at least that’s what I could make out). He skips away in his car and we’re left in the sand again. I wonder to myself if the guy will ever come back. I ask hubby to translate what the guy said. "He's gonna come back with a rope". I roll my eyes thinking "yeah right, where is he going to get a rope in the middle of nowehere?" Well, a little over 30 minutes later, yes, skipping of course (and whistling), he comes back with a rope and in minutes we are rescued. This perfect stranger drove out all the way to his home, got a rope, drove back to us and then insisted we come to his families home for tea!!!. We were truly touched. We very politely declined and kept thanking him for his help, I even convinced Sam to offer money(total insult I learned). But you should know, you can’t say “no” to an Omani.

We were so graciously served hot tea and were with wonderful company. I tried my best to communicate in broken Arabic. By the end of our visit we were sad to say goodbye. I wont ever forget them. They also convinced me to try camping in the desert during winter. I think I'll take their advice, maybe next weekend?

And about the skipping car, Khalid (our saviour) advised us; “New cars no good. Old, much better.”

Have you ever been touched with selfless kindness by a total stranger?