The Mission Impossible. 

Can you imagine travelling around the world with a 1971 Volkswagen beetle from Alaska to Argentina? Can you imagine travelling without money? In 2020, while many people were forced to stay at home even during Christmas time, I went to Netflix and found this documentary called Kindness diaries. A man named Leon did what I described above. He travelled around the world solely relying on people’s kindness to provide him with food, gas, and a place to stay overnight. Here are a couple of stories I picked up while watching his diary. 

Kindness stories

The first story I picked is when he travelled through Canada, a nation, not only famous because of beavers, maple leafs, but also because of the kindness of people. He travelled a little town in Canada and tried to find a place to stay overnight. He asked many people, and he was rejected many times. Finally a man pointed him to a man called Richard. Richard makes his living as a travel agent and knowing that life is difficult for immigrants like you and me, he offers to give people a free Wednesday Pizza night. Leon found him and Richard kindly offered him a place to stay overnight. Leon also attended his Pizza night and he saw many people gathering around at Richard’s house. He was so touched by Richard’s generosity that he himself is moved to support Richard’s mission of Wednesday Pizza night by donating his money to support this activity for a whole year (food and drinks). 

In his journey, he also met a girl and her boy friend. And they kindly let Leon stay at their house. Leon had a discussion with the girl and wanted to find out why she agreed to let him stay. And the girl said she used to be homeless and her aunt saved her by taking care of her and she knew the feeling of being homeless. Leon was moved again and he supported her dream of helping other kids. 

There are many touching stories in his documentary which consists of 13 episodes, each of them being around 20 minutes. Around episode 11, he told the audience why he chose to do this. It turned out that when he was young, he always felt unloved and sometimes even humiliated by his teacher. Until one day, when he met a lady whose name is Duksa. Duksa met Leon when Leon volunteered in Duksa’s orphanage 20 years ago before Leon started recording his journey from Alaska to Argentina. It is Duska’s orphanage where he found unconditional love and his childhood wounds were healed, and which planted a seed of this documentary. Duska is a missionary and when Leon is asked if he is a religious person, he says he thinks of himself more as a man of faith and a man who trusts humanity. 

The unkindness stories. 

Certainly, in his journey around the world, not everything is pleasant, sometimes, he has to squeeze himself in his old car and sometimes has to make a choice to sleep under the night sky, or even be forced to put a sleeping bag on a beach where Crocodile may come out and eat him. One thing I remember vividly is that he visited a dungeon. The dungeon was used to put slaves. It is windowless, it is completely dark, without light at all. He went there and all he can feel is the absence of kindness, compassion, and humanity. 

Reflection 

Finally, when this journey finishes at a place called Ushuaia, he sits on a mountain, contemplates, and reflects. He said he found kindness in those people who sometimes do not have much, who believe in some kind of God, and who have an ability feel other people’s needs and pain and do something. He encourages others to do the same and be kind to each other. 

Go be kind.