The kindness of strangers

I received an e-mail at work the other day from a young lady who picked up a pen drive that had fallen out of my bag as I was getting off the train at Jeziorki. She'd tracked down my e-mail address from a PowerPoint presentation on the pen drive, and this afternoon, she popped it over to my office in person.

Such acts of kindness are like little miracles that raise one's estimation of the people among whom I live. But this was not an isolated incident.

The very same day, the taxi driver than drove me home from Wilanowska remembered that several weeks ago he didn't have enough loose change from the notes I proffered him. He reduced my fare by three zlotys to make it up.

This reminded me of the time, seven or eight years ago when I left a pair of gloves in a taxi; a couple of hours later the driver called round to my office to drop them off, saying he remembered picking me up from this address.

Each act of kindness such as this, unbidden, selfless and generous, adds to social trust, to the the nation's social capital, and makes the country a better place to live.

So a heartfelt 'thank you' to Pani Judyta and the taxi driver with the navy-blue Volvo S80 for contributing in their way to making me feel good about my fellow Poles.

This time last year:
Picks of the pics that passed Feb's posts

This time three years ago:
The Economist was wrong about Poland

This time four years ago:
Siekierki - the end of the line