From the Well to the Sky: Lessons in Hospitality

Sometimes, it takes a moment of childlike wonder to truly become an adult. One day, my thoughts turned to an old Aesop fable. And suddenly, the story of a donkey became something truly precious.
Donkeys, with their gentle nature, are among the most intelligent and sensitive animals there are. One day, we’ll have a donkey on our staff — he’ll graze the grass and keep our sometimes-weary team company. No joke. A somewhat stubborn animal, yes, but patient, brave, and determined. And that’s exactly what we need.

Just across from our Hotel La Posta in Bagno Vignoni, there’s Zorro. He brays from time to time — perhaps calling someone? He always brings me back to reality when I’m distracted, and he never fails to make me smile.

Let’s go back to Aesop’s fable. Once upon a time, a poor donkey fell into a well. The farmer who owned him decided the animal was too old to be worth the effort of saving, and since the well was dry anyway, it ought to be filled in.

He called his neighbours — quite the charming bunch of scoundrels — and together they began shovelling earth into the well. The donkey brayed in despair, but after a few shovelfuls, he fell silent. Curious, the farmer looked down and was astonished by what he saw: with every load of dirt that landed on him, the donkey was shaking it off and stepping up onto it, turning each shovelful into a step.

Soon, everyone watched as the donkey reached the top of the well, climbed over the edge, and trotted off. If he could speak, I’m sure he’d have given his owner a piece of his mind — and I do hope he managed at least a little kick to the shins.

Now, thinking about us humans — how much dirt gets thrown at us every day? How often do we find ourselves at the bottom of a deep well, where everything seems hopeless? If we look at the world around us, at the daily resignation with which we observe what’s happening, we might feel like calling a colleague and saying we’re off to live in a cave — or, perhaps, in a well.

The truth is, life will knock us down sooner or later. Disappointments, mistakes, snap judgments, failures — it’s inevitable. But the point isn’t to avoid the dirt; the point is what we do with it.
The secret to getting out of the well isn’t pretending we’re not in it. It’s about using what we have to climb the walls. Having the courage to rediscover curiosity, to rediscover what’s new, and not just sit around waiting for a basket to be lowered from the sky.
To get up, shake off the tiredness, start again, and say, “Well, time to climb out and trot off once more.” Or at least give it a try.

Perfection is inhuman, because humans are imperfect. We are not perfect — and perhaps we don’t even want to be.
To be perfect would be to dull the sense of human warmth and welcome — that xenia, understood as openness of soul and respect, which is the foundation of why we do what we do each day.
Xenia, in its original meaning, was a sacred bond between guest and traveller — an exchange that lasted generations.

Have we made mistakes over the years? Oh yes, plenty. Have we contradicted ourselves? Certainly. Has dirt been thrown at us? Yes, and surely more will come — just like everyone else.
But we’ve used that dirt to build something, to give meaning to what we do, to climb out of our own well — which may have been beautiful, but was still a well.

And often dug right beneath our feet: the unexpected complaint, the impossible request, a maze with no way out; the season that never takes off, a sacred place desecrated by our own greed; that great team member we invested in who leaves for a better-paid job at a mountain hut 2,000 metres up; the guest who cancels because the weather’s unpredictable; the review that annoys you like a mosquito just as you’re dozing off.

And yet, we must keep welcoming with open hearts, continuing to believe in tourism as Hospitality. Because Hospitality is an act of love.
And we want to keep being and doing Hospitality — with all the dirt in the world and maybe, just maybe, with a little donkey who, instead of carrying a load, might wear a colourful vest and munch the grass on our lawn.

.m