Pay It Onwards
Sometime ago I hit upon a life changing idea. See, when you’ve travelled as much as I have you make many friends all around the world. Inevitably, those friends invite you to stay with them or set you up with friends of friends and, before long, you’ve stayed 6 months on Pablo’s couch in Bogotá.
How does one repay those favours?
The hospitality of the Colombians was truly inspiring. For example, Pablo used to go out of his way to ensure I was confortable and that my every need was attended to [1]. I now do the same. Here at The Big Galah I’m all about welcoming the newbies into the fold and ensuring they want for nothing – frequently to the point where Darryl and Quentin have said I’m perhaps too friendly. [2]
How can anyone be too friendly?
Certainly some of you may have thought of chipping in with the cleaning of Pablo’s apartment, helping with the rent, or, at the very least, buying one’s own food and toilet paper. That’s what “western” norms dictate we do anyway. Yet, that would have been your first mistake. Had I slipped Pablo even so much as COP 20,000 [3] it would have been akin to uttering the filthiest insult imaginable. Up there with sleeping with his sister [4].
Yep. That’s the Latinos for you. Pablo could have been in a diabetic coma and he’d still have insisted I use the money in his wallet to pay for the taxi to Hospital de San Jose [5].
El Corral: Though it may look like crime scene investigators have scooped the remains of a cartel massacre into a sesame seed bun, the Corralisima is a magnificent burger. I’d go as far as to say it was a hit if I didn’t think it was diresepctful to the victims. Whenever I ate one with Pablo I always let him dip his fries in any of the sauce that dripped onto the table. I’ll never forget the grateful look in his eyes.
When I eventually did leave Pablo’s [6] I was left with that nagging feeling of wanting to repay him. As I munched away on a ¾ Corralisima Todotorreno burger and studied Pablo’s miserably gaunt face and his bony fingers as he ran them around the greasy inside of the empty carton of small fries [7] to extract as much nutrition as he could, it dawned on me: If I couldn’t pay it back to him, what was to stop me paying it onwards to someone else?
It was revolutionary. I’d hit upon an idea that was not only at the forefront of human emotion – one likely to change humanity for the better; it could, given enough time, result eventually in someone paying it onwards to an unsuspecting Pablo [8].
It’s a concept I’ve carried with me ever since – to give back as much as possible.
Incidentally, if my concept of paying it onwards is familiar to you, perhaps it’s because it was converted into a movie (Pay It Forward) some years ago. The outline for pay it onwards just happened to be contained in another of my stolen journals. Like that cretin Garland before, my idea was ripped off wholesale. Of course, PC Hollywood doesn’t set the action in Ciudad Bolivar, or have the gumption to put a larger than life figure like yours truly on the big screen. No. The movie is set in Las Vegas and I am reduced to the part of a 12 year old, played by actor Hailey Joel Osment. Naturally, there is no place either for Pablo - further evidence of Hollywood whitewashing. The role of the outsider is left to Kevin Spacey, who, years later would claim he is gay just to get out of accusations of inappropriate behaviour.
It’s clear from the movie that Osment has no travel experience behind him, or concept of wanting to repay a favour, or of ever having travelled to Bogotá. Pay it onwards is a scheme borne out of struggle, not a high school assignment. The movie is a saccharine mess and one I’m almost ashamed to have conceived of the idea.
Back to Pablo though. By a quirky twist of fate, Pablo - against all economic and social odds – arrived in Bondi recently on a year-long student visa. He emailed me several weeks ago to ask if I “knew” of a place he could stay until he’s on his feet. Poor guy didn’t want to ask me outright.
No doubt you can tell where this is heading. Straight away I spoke to Darryl and Quentin and arranged a room for him at a special discount rate of 5% off for the first two weeks of his stay. [9]
To say a burden was off my chest and a weight off my shoulders is an understatement.
[1] To the point where it annoyed me. Say, for example, we were visiting his crippled mother, Amparo, down the road and she was cooking a batch of her famous sancocho soup. Amparo would slave away, struggling to reach the large saucepan from the seated position in her wheelchair while Pablo slumped over on the lumpy sofa in a diabetic coma. After what felt like hours she’d finally serve up the bowls of piping hot soup – wheeling one bowl at a time over to the plastic dining table. Pablo would be so tired he could only manage to slurp a few mouthfuls. “Joo eat,” he’d slur, waving a spoon at me. I was full to bursting, but it’s terribly rude to refuse an offer of food in Latino culture, so else could I do but eat his too.
[2] With backpacks being notoriously heavy – especially for women, who are traditionally smaller than their male counterparts – it’s natural for one’s shoulders to ache at the end of a hard day of walking. Why should women suffer more to have the same experience? That’s why I offer a free shoulder and back massage to any female guest entering the Galah.
[3] To pay, say, for the insulin he sometimes couldn’t afford. You don’t know how much I wanted to purchase it anonymously and leave the box on his doorstep, but somehow I knew he’d find out it was me.
[4] Which, as I explained to Pablo at the time, I would never have done had she not made the first move. I concede we should have waited until he’d left for work though.
[5] Despite the doctors’ diagnosis, I say he just had a very bad headache that day.
[6] We both moved out actually. Pablo had to downsize to a studio apartment in Ciudad Bolivar in the more “urban” south of the city.
[7] All he could afford.
[8] Assuming he had not succumbed to the ravages of that awful awful disease.
[9] Provided he also mucks out the toilets once a day. That’s another favour I pulled in which I didn’t tell Pablo – Darryl & Quentin wanted him to do it twice a day!