My daughter recently sent me a link to one of the best love stories I’ve ever read. It didn’t, however, have the traditional structure of guy meets girl, guy loses girl, guy finds girl again and they both live happily ever after.
This is the story of a guy and a penguin.
From an article in Metro UK:
Retired bricklayer and part time fisherman Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, who lives in an island village just outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, found the tiny penguin, covered in oil and close to death, lying on rocks on his local beach in 2011.
Joao cleaned the oil off the penguin’s feathers and fed him a daily diet of fish to build his strength. He named him Dindim.
After a week, he tried to release the penguin back into the sea. But, the bird wouldn’t leave. ‘He stayed with me for 11 months and then, just after he changed his coat with new feathers, he disappeared,’ Joao recalls.
And, just a few months later, Dindim was back. He spotted the fisherman on the beach one day and followed him home.
For the past five years, Dindim has spent eight months of the year with Joao and is believed to spend the rest of the time breeding off the coast of Argentina and Chile.
It’s thought he swims up to 5,000 miles each year to be reunited with the man who saved his life.
It is easy to be cynical these days and this weekly blog has certainly been an outlet for that cynicism when it comes to infrastructure and language and general human decency.
But here is a testament to the power of a single man. A single man who, through kindness and love, made the earth a better place.
Imagine harnessing the power of all the Joao Pereira de Souzas across the world. At Areena, we have.
Art Gurwitz
Founder, Areena
Author
