The Value of Hope

Instead of telling you about a book or about my professional experiences… or about business..., let me write in plain (and mediocre...) English and share with you a meaningful experience.?

I was in a hotel bar today trying to grab something to eat after a long day...

The place had three different bar attendants, and none of them could speak much English. As I was ordering, I was growing in frustration… No plate, no silverware, no water… No ice… When I really called them out and asked for what I needed I realized that the lady behind the counter was from Eritrea. Her English was limited but her heart was there…

The other waiter was from Nicaragua and the third one was from Peru. I realized then that these folks meant well but the expectations I had living in the U.S. were not aligned with what they had each experienced in their lives. They were professionals in their own way, and they were ready to learn. For what they told me, no one had really got any interest in asking them about their origins or who they were… ?

When I told the Eritrean lady that I knew a few words in Tigrinya, she was surprised that I knew about a small language that has less than 2.5 million speakers.

When I spoke to the Peruvian waiter about César Vallejo′s book Poemas humanos, and later to the Nicaraguan waiter about the princess that the poet Rubén Darío had imagined in Managua…, I think we all realized that we were all part of a larger community of human beings, only with different status, different incomes, different luck…

Believe me if I tell you that I am not someone who wants to show compassion for the sake of it, or that I want to project an amicable or positive side of me. Quite the opposite. For starters, I could probably do a much better job if I had written this in Spanish, but it is what it is…. I am simply sharing that as I was going through this experience today I was perceiving that it is a blessing to be a human being.

Whether you know or you do not know that Eritrea is located in East Africa on the Red Sea bordering Ethiopia, this waitress was happy to see that someone was really paying attention to her. She was not actually a young waiter…. which made me feel even more aware of her challenges trying to take care of her own family...

The same can be said about the waiter from Peru and the one from Nicaragua. None of them were under 50 years-old… I do not mean to mention age… but it is relevant to the case as it shows the value of hope....

The Nicaraguan waiter was thrilled that I spent half of my life writing about Rubén Darío, the flagship poet of Central America, and the poet who changed the course of the entire Spanish and Latin American modern and contemporary poetry. The waiter was from León… just where Rubén Darío had studied…

As the evening went on... I also saw their manager, and he told me he was from India, and that he really cared for his team and for the customers. He was interested in the input I may have for his team… He was very kind and appreciative.

I realized then that sometimes these folks who come from far away, from distant lands…. from distant cultures.... they still carry the pain of having left their families and their homeland behind, but they are proud to show the value of hope, their character and the resilience that is needed to move forward.

No plate, no silverware, no water… No ice… Not at the time I wanted it all as we normally expect it here in the U.S. …. but there is a lot that I learned today watching and understanding these folks, their experiences, their lives, their pains… and how happy they were to be talked to from the other side of the bar instead of just getting to listen to the usual order of some food and some drinks.?

The value of hope goes both ways…