{"id":4090,"date":"2018-03-04T19:12:52","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T22:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/?p=4090"},"modified":"2019-02-08T20:08:44","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T23:08:44","slug":"the-reluctant-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/?p=4090","title":{"rendered":"The Reluctant Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/strong>n the morning on the way to work, I walk by the Paulista University.\u00a0 So, it is common that I end up walking with many of the students on the way to class.\u00a0 The other day, just as I got about 50 yards from the school, one of the public buses made a stop and the driver helped a young blind man off the bus.\u00a0 He reached out to grab someone nearby to help the man get to his destination, and \u2026 well, that person ended up being me.<\/p>\n

If it wasn\u2019t for the language barrier which is more than any other place we lived, it would not be a problem.\u00a0 The driver grabbed me by the sleeve and placed the young man\u2019s hand on my arm as I tried to tell him I did not understand Portuguese.\u00a0 He rattled off something in Portuguese and boarded the bus and drove off, with several people gawking at me from the bus windows.<\/p>\n

So, I started to panic.\u00a0 I removed his hand from my arm, and grabbed hold of his arm in case he tripped … or something. \u00a0 I had no idea what to do with this man.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t get my phone out to use the translator app, because he was blind.\u00a0 So, I did what I usually do when get thrust in with the Brazilians.\u00a0 I say, \u201cEu n\u00e3o entendo portugu\u00eas\u201d. (I do not understand Portuguese). \u00a0He looked toward my direction with his eyes rolled up into his eye sockets and replied, \u201cI speak leetle\u00a0 English.\u201d<\/p>\n

Okay.\u00a0 First hurdle, now the next.\u00a0 \u201cDo you need to go to the University?\u201d<\/p>\n

He moved my hand from his arm and gently slipped his hand under my arm.\u00a0 That simple gesture made me relax.\u00a0 I was no longer leading him, but simply walking with him.\u00a0 He said, \u201cYes.\u00a0 I am study computer science.\u201d<\/p>\n

Okay.\u00a0 Second hurdle has been reached.<\/p>\n

So, I gently moved him around the corner and walked to where I thought the students entered the building.\u00a0 He kept tapping his cane back and forth in front of him, until he came to a point where the ground shifted to a slight incline near a corner of a wall.\u00a0 At that point, he knew where he was and thanked me for my help.<\/p>\n

I found such a simple act of helping a young blind student get to his class, a thought provoking moment for those of us who take our sight, and everything else for granted.<\/p>\n

But I was happy to let him go, and as I continued walking to the consulate, I was reminded there are people walking among us not born of woman, who are placed here to test\/teach us.\u00a0 I wondered if he was such a person, and if he was, did I pass?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the morning on the way to work, I walk by the Paulista University.\u00a0 So, it is common that I …<\/p>\n

Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2tztR-13Y","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4090"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4959,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4090\/revisions\/4959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dknolte.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}