Hope

So I had intended on blogging about one hundred different foodie things today (and I may still yet), whether it was the raw key lime pie I made on Saturday or the awesome Middle-Eastern food themed meal I made for dinner last night. Instead, my faith in humanity was totally renewed this morning, and I feel like I just had to share it with you:

Walking towards my bus stop today on one of the biggest and busiest streets in downtown DC, I fell across a scene that renewed my faith in humanity, that there is good in the world, that people can still connect to one another, that we still have an inherent love for nature and a desire to protect it, and that humans can be pretty awesome sometimes. To start off, Pennsylvania Avenue is a pretty scary street to cross even when you're a human!

So imagine being a mother duck with almost a dozen little duckling trying to cross it. Not fun. What I saw from a block away was a mother duck and her babies in the middle of tall buildings and never-ending concrete streets, trying to cross the street to get to what I can only assume was the greenery around the National Mall or the tidal basin or something. The cars were whizzing by, the buses droning along... there was no way mommy duck and her babies were going to make it safely across 8 lanes of traffic. Before I could think about what I would do about it when I reached them, three people from what were obviously totally different racial and social walks of life came together out of nowhere and single-handedly stopped traffic to let the ducks cross. They first tried to shoo the mother and her babies back onto the sidewalk, but she wouldn't have it. She had to cross. So, picture this: a small elderly Indian woman in a gorgeously coloured sari, a stereotypical A-type middle-aged Caucasian business woman, and a laid back looking younger Hispanic man in serviceman's uniform from the store across the street, all formed a little barricade to let them pass. One of the them was trying to stop traffic, the other was following the ducklings to make sure they all stayed together, and the last was simply standing with her arms outspread in the middle of the street, risking the danger of speeding cars for these nine little ducks. Needless to say, with the help of these three people, the ducks made it safely across.

It was funny, it was hilarious, it was cute... but above all, it was beautiful and so heart-warming I couldn't help but smile all the way home. I was filled with such love for these people, for humanity when it works together to serve others, and for when life is filled with these little moments of beauty and love and companionship. I know DC has all sorts of people from all over the world, but it was such an awesome coincidence to see these three people, dressed so differently, with such different life experiences, all uniting for one simple reason. It really comes to show what matters at the day of the day: compassion and love. Nothing else matters. It didn't matter who these people were, what else they were going to do today or what they had done yesterday. They were and are all the same: They are good people trying to do good things. That is humanity to me. It seems silly, but it made my day.