Taxi Driver Kindness

I hired a taxi, while still in Azau, to take me to the neighboring villages. I promised to mail some letters for Dick back home, and I also needed cash & toothpaste. The Driver and I communicated largely through diagrams sketched on a pad of paper handed back and forth. It was challenging for both of us, which I think created a shared sense of accomplishment when we had returned to Azau. I was closing the cab door when he made an urgent sound and held up a hand signaling I should wait. The cab driver opened a chest pocket on his shirt and dug out a halloween-size individually wrapped coconut candy. He handed it to me, then pulled another halfway out of the pocket to show he too will be eating one. Then he smiled. Back in Moscow, a group of us hired a taxi to take us to a dance club one night. About ten minutes into the ride the Driver turned to Mike Crowley, riding front passenger, and handed him some kind of large baked good. It was flat and round like a danish, but had no topping. Not sure what to do, Mike admired the bread respectfully, saying "Hey that's quite a nice bread," and handed it back. The Driver insisted Mike keep the bread. He seemed quite excited that we should all try it. Mike took a bite and handed it back to me. I held it for a moment. "Hey, it's still warm." I commented. "How do suppose he managed that?" I took a bite. It tasted like a pancake. "Now that's some fine taxi bread." I commented as I passed it on. We all took turns biting chunks out of the bread. It's not that we were hungry or that it tasted particularly good. It was just fun in a way that felt wholly random. We had come to embrace random, trust in it's place in our world, celebrate the color it brings to the party. Soon the bread was gone and we thanked the Driver as he dropped us at the club. I've thought about that experience since then, realized the Taxi Driver probably gave us his dinner, wondered why. It's not like he handed it to us when we first got in the car. Ten minutes had clicked by while he thought to himself "should I give them the bread or shouldn't I?" Then all of the sudden out comes the bread! I wonder what made the difference in a car load of people he couldn't understand. I just don't know.