I took a ride on a tuk-tuk motorcycle taxi around Maputo, Mozambique, with my buddy and fellow All Things Considered producer, Vincent Acovino. We were in the country reporting on changes to U.S. funding for AIDS in Africa.

Vinny noticed it first: There was something magical about a number of the concrete apartment blocks and government offices here. With half a day off and a little googling, we gave ourselves an impromptu tour of the architecture of Amâncio “Pancho” Guedes. The late Portuguese-born architect designed some pretty cool buildings here in the 1950s and ’60s. They include the Prédio Abreu, Santos e Rocha pictured above, and other structures with evocative names like The Smiling Lion apartment block and the Lemon Squeezer church. Step into a small interior stairwell of The Dragon House, and you see a mural in sparkling black and white stone of a spiky dragon with a toothy grin. It transforms what would otherwise be a dim stairwell.

Guedes designed more than 500 buildings in the city, from churches to bakeries. I don’t have the language to capture it: the use of heavy materials, combined with the playful use of shapes and murals. “Eclectic Modernist,” I later learned, is how his work is described. One critic wrote that his work brilliantly mixes the “sculptural and figurative with practical requirements and traditional local identity.”

Maputo will change and I have to imagine not all of his work will survive. But stumbling into a town with a visual landscape that still shows Guedes’ thumbprint was a delight. For an afternoon, riding through the city streets in the open-air tuk-tuk, looking for what might have been his handiwork was a good time. Like an Easter egg hunt in concrete.

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From now through July 6, residents and tourists alike can download the California State Parks Historian Passport for free, allowing them access to more than 30 state historic parks across the state through the end of 2026.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the initiative Wednesday in honor of both Juneteenth and the the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

“California’s state historic parks preserve some of our nation’s most powerful and meaningful stories, and I’m proud to live in a state that celebrates diversity to connect more people with those stories through this limited-time free pass,” California State Parks director Armando Quintero said in a statement. “I hope the free Historian Passport introduces more Californians to the state’s historic gems and sparks a curiosity and thirst for knowledge that leads to many return visits.”

The pass typically costs $50 and allows unlimited entry for up to four people to state historic parks and museums that charge a per-person admission fee or a vehicle day-use fee.

Historic parks in and around L.A. County that accept the Historian Passport include:

Other parks that accept the pass are:

A full list is available at parks.ca.gov.

To download a free pass, visit ReserveCalifornia.com and click “Passes” in the upper main menu. From here, you’ll be prompted to either create a new account or log into your existing account. Once logged in, you can use the dropdown menu on the page to select “Special Edition Historian Passport 2026 – $0.00.” You can then check out with your pass and will quickly have it added to your list of passes within your account.

Leaders with the California State Parks Foundation and the California State Railroad Museum Foundation, which helped finance the initiative, said they hope the free Historian pass opens up access to more people to see our public lands.

“California state parks help us understand the history of California, the United States, and the ongoing work of building a more inclusive democracy,” said Rachel Norton, executive director of California State Parks Foundation. “The special edition Historian Passport is a great opportunity to explore state parks for free. We hope access to the Historian Passport encourages more Californians to visit a historic state park and learn about, and reflect on, our shared history.”

In the summer of 1995, when she was 15, Rebecca Simonitsch woke up in the hospital. She later learned she had had a series of convulsive seizures that put her into a coma. For the next three years, she took medication to prevent future episodes.

At 18, before she left for college, her doctors took her off the medication. That’s when she began noticing more subtle kinds of seizures, known as focal seizures. She later realized she had probably been experiencing them on and off ever since she left the hospital.

“The average person would likely have never known when I was having a seizure,” Simonitsch said.

“[But] if I tried to speak during them, my words would come out sounding a little like gibberish.  And then I would also feel nausea, weakness and fatigue.”

Simonitsch was diagnosed with epilepsy. She cycled through multiple medications to stop the seizures, but nothing worked. She could no longer drive, and the side effects of the medication became unmanageable.

By the time she was 20, it was clear something had to change. That winter, she flew from Charleston to Baltimore to meet with a neurologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. After many tests, he identified the source of her seizures — scar tissue in her left temporal lobe — and told her she was a candidate for brain surgery.

On the flight home, Simonitsch kept replaying what the doctor had told her.

“And like so many patients who receive difficult or big news, I had really only absorbed 10 to 15% of the conversation. And now I had so many questions,” Simonitsch said.

“So I just recall being on the plane, looking out the window and feeling so many emotions in that moment … everything from fear to worry to relief.”

As she continued to grapple with these feelings, the man sitting next to her struck up a conversation. He asked her what she was doing in Baltimore, and she told him about the surgery.

“He turned to look at me. And he shared with me that he had an expertise in neuropsychology, and he had worked with patients like me.”

For the rest of the two-hour flight, the man listened as she shared what the doctor had told her and the questions she still had. He clarified what the surgery would involve and made sure she understood. Then he reached for his bag and pulled out a notebook and pen.

“He had some really old school graph-like paper that he put on the airplane table,” she said.

“And then he just started drawing pictures of the brain. And even marking sections of his drawing as he spoke … and ‘This is what they would do with the surgery and how they would remove that scarred region.’”

Twenty-five years later, she still remembers how that conversation made her feel.

“I’ll just never forget his kindness and the warmth that he exuded. And how it helped my anxiety fade,” she said. “And that was what I needed on that flight back to Charleston by myself.”

Simonitsch went on to have the surgery, and today, she remains seizure-free. She still has that piece of paper with the man’s drawing of the brain.

“He gave me something that I deeply needed that day: realistic hope, reassurance and compassion,” she said. “All from a complete stranger sitting beside me on a crowded flight.”

My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.