At Wake Forest, we excel in practicing the message of Pro Humanitate. Working with humans, for the greater good of other humans. It never fails to make me smile seeing the message of Pro Humanitate carried out at Wake Forest. But what has truly amazed me in my time spent abroad is the fact that Pro Humanitate is an international concept. Everywhere I go, I see good works unfolding before me. This is something that has truly comforted me and made my time abroad extremely special. Although Austrian culture is seen as a bit cold and hardcore in comparison to American culture, the good works are insurmountable.
As some of you may know, my friends and I have run into our fair amount of hardships when traveling. From tripping in the streets of Amsterdam and scraping up a knee and an elbow to almost missing our flight to Vienna from Barcelona, we have a colorful portfolio of interesting experiences. But in those instances, there is always someone standing in the background watching said disaster unfold in front of us. But what do they do? They ask if they can help. Having this familiar sense of hospitality has made all of those situations much less dramatic. And here is where I like to tell my favorite story:
It was the morning of our departure from Barcelona back to Vienna. We were packed, prepared, and ready to return to our lives at fräuleins. The night prior, we calculated when we needed to leave in order to get to the flight on time. It all seemed planned to a T. We walked into the airport and waited in line to check our bags. We made it, hooray! No more croquets, no more paella, and no more sangria. I was actually beginning to miss wiener schnitzel! Then what do my wondering eyes appear… the boarding time on my ticket. Boarding began in a mere 30 minutes. And queue the anxiety and stress for all 5 college girls. We found security and recognized that the long-winding line of other travelers could likely take an hour to get through… I recall when my friend said with a stone-cold look registered on her face “Guys we need to seriously consider what we are going to do if we don’t make this flight.” And this is where we all realized we could be missing our first day of class, stuck in Barcelona with no hotel arrangements and very little patience. Yes, worse things have happened, but at the moment this took precedence. We luckily zoom through security and feel a little less stressed. Yet another line was right before us, separating us from our gate. Passport check. There were two lines, one shorter than the other, and at the time we thought that both were general passport lines. By the time we make it close to the booth, someone informs us that this line is only for members of the EU. The line for general passports (the much, much longer one) was growing and we were beginning to break down. We decided to jump over the divider and cut the line. This is where the yelling ensued. And to get to my long, drawn out point.. While the bulk of the line was yelling at us and throwing expletives our way, two kind-hearted individuals whispered to us “Just keep going, and don’t stop saying that you’ll miss your flight.”
In all this time we were comprised of a jumble of emotions including anger, frustration, anxiety. But this one phrase essentially took the world off of our backs and made it seem possible that we could get to our flight. Even more amazing is that we were cutting these individuals, yet they understood our situation and offered a helping hand. They went against the general status of the crowd and gave us the courage to keep going. I am extremely grateful for this moment because we would have missed our flight if not for these two strangers. I will likely never see them again and I will never get to thank them for saving us from a potentially reckless disaster. But that is Pro Humanitate. By using your compassion to better the lives of others, you are exercising Pro Humanitate. These individuals were compassionate and kind, and helped improve our situation.
Though a simple and not grandiose gesture, it is the little things that truly make Pro Humanitate such a contagious movement of human nature.
