And the Winner is....

If there was a contest for who could re-write "The Parable of the Good Samaritan" in today's language and custom, we have a winner!

All the way from Colombia, through the magic of the internet, Caleb wrote this one. Get your cup of whatever, sit back, and marvel at the creative genius of our young folk!

Once there was this old guy, a plumber with no money and not too many teeth, who was traveling from Sincelejo to Tolu. Some army guys stopped him on the road, stole his moto from him, beat him up really bad, took his shirt and sandals and cap, and left him bleeding and unconscious on the side of the road. It was a hot day before noon and after a few hours, the guy was sunburned and had heat stroke and couldn’t even sit up or call for help.

He was so relieved to see the car of a Catholic priest drive by and slow down. But the priest was headed to Valencia (a fancy neighborhood in Sincelejo) to say Mass. He saw the plumber dude but as soon as he could be sure it wasn’t anyone with lots of money from the cathedral or the colegio, he just kept on driving in his SUV on toward Valencia. The plumber lay his head back down on the dusty ground and could feel the ants biting him but could’t shoo them off.

Next, a doctor drove by on his way from the clinica to go pick up his kids from the Club. The doctor saw this guy lying there but just kept right on driving in his clean pick up truck---if he stopped every time a person was hurt or dead in the road, he’d never get anywhere! 

Then, Domingo the portero, passed by and saw this man suffering. He stopped and made some bandages out of his shirt to stop the bleeding and cover up the sunburn.  He stopped a guy selling water (in little plastic bags like they do here). Domingo bought three bags of water and helped the plumberman drink some and washed his face off with it. Then Domingo stopped a pushcart. The man pushing it was hollering, “Banano, banano, banano, avocate….” (selling his fruit at the top of his lungs kinda like the peanut and hotdog guys do at a ballgame, in rhythm and all). 

Domingo paid the banano man to let the victim lie on top of his cart (squishing the fruit some) and get pushed to the clinica (like a hospital) in town. He gave the guy 15 thousand pesos—about two days wages and enough to pay for a night in the clinica—and told him to make sure this man had some soup and meat before he left him for the night at the hospital. Domingo promised the beat up guy he’d see him tomorrow and then rushed back toward the apartment building for work, shirtless.

 Which one was really “the neighbor”? Domingo, even though his accent lets you know he isn’t from here and that he grew up a poor farmer and he’s displaced (which is like a really bad thing to be in the eyes of the public here and folks do everything they can to hide that and look better than that so they won’t get so discriminated against).

The End.