A biblical story recalls a man going from Jerusalem to Jericho who is stripped, robbed and beaten. A priest and a Levite pass by without helping, but a Samaritan stops and cares for him, takes him to an inn, and pays for his care. The message here is basically to love thy neighbour, and do to them what you would have done to you. For the purposes of this story, it doesn’t matter who was what, just that the Samaritan helped a stranger in his hour of need.

Now I am not a particularly God-fearing woman, nor a total heathen either. I was brought up to be polite, help others (particularly my mother with the vacuum cleaner), don’t be rude, don’t hit people and do my homework.

My Personal Good Samaritans

Well, I had a Good Samaritan experience yesterday, and you could probably call it payback in the nicest way. I have a neighbour who lives alone and doesn’t go out much, so we had invited him to our house for a meal. Nothing fancy, just a change of scenery for him, ‘breaking bread’ together so to speak (it was actually bangers, mash and peas). I was being the Good Samaritan in this case.

But I was out of peas, so I set out early to buy some more, and driving from the house, I could hear a rubbing sound from outside, which sounded like a branch might have caught under the car, something not unusual for our rural area, and I didn’t take much notice.

I parked outside the shop, and a man tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to my back wheel - the rubbing sound had been a flat tyre, and I cursed under my breath. Now, hear me out. I am not a car technician, but I do know the principles of changing a wheel, and funnily enough, not that many weeks ago, when we had all that rain, the ‘well’ where the spare sits had been flooded, and I had managed to take the spare out myself, together with the jack underneath. My trusty mechanic arrived and drilled a hole to let the water out, and Bob’s your Uncle, I was sorted.

I had the Knowledge

However, I wasn’t about to put my knowledge to the test, especially in front of a handful of local men, cigarettes alight, beer bottles in hand, who were no doubt just waiting for their morning entertainment to begin. I knew the wheel nuts were probably on tight, and would need some serious weight to undo them as those wheels hadn’t been off in a long time, so I had visions of sweating like a pig, with my skirt blowing up showing next weeks’ washing. The trusty mechanic was called, and I sat and waited, boot open, door open, nonchalantly looking at my phone.


Well, imagine my surprise when a gentleman who I assume was one of the ‘watchers’ came up and offered to change the tyre - actually insisted he and his mate would do it - and sent me off to get my peas. I could see my car being rocked about through the shop window and for one horrible moment wondered if they were taking the wheel off without jacking it first. But all was well, and they had done the job by the time I re-joined them. A few euros and hugs were exchanged for their kindness, and we went our separate ways – them into the store to no doubt to ‘buy refreshments’, and me back home to cooking bangers and mash (with peas).

The Moral of the Story

They were total strangers who had extended helping hands. They were my Good Samaritans for half an hour, and I couldn’t have been more grateful. Thank you, Nelson and Ruben.

The moral of this story, if there is one, is that everyone needs a helping hand sometimes, maybe some dear old soul struggling in the heat with carrier bags – or someone like me, too inept to even change a tyre myself.

The concept that good deeds can be returned from unexpected directions is sooo true.

Author

Marilyn writes regularly for The Portugal News, and has lived in the Algarve for some years. A dog-lover, she has lived in Ireland, UK, Bermuda and the Isle of Man. 

Marilyn Sheridan