in the spanish colony of ceuta i was considering spending my last few euros on a bottle of wine (would have been my last taste of alcohol for a while) when i changed my mind and gave them instead to a man standing alone on a street corner.
he indicated to me the directions to the moroccan border and then said he would come with me for the short walk. he said he had fifteen days off work and had nothing else to do.
he told me that i should be careful in morocco; that not everyone is a good person. that, in fact, most people are bad.
this perturbed me.
i said i thought most people were good, or at least had the potential to be good.
this he agreed with, but he reaffirmed that most people chose not to be good.
i said that people have only one true experience of life - their own - and that perhaps when considering the life experience of other people, they take the example of their own life and project it on to others. for example perhaps some good people (being naive) think that everyone else in the world is also good. and that some bad people, going by their own experience of themselves, believe that everyone else is bad.
mustafah (i learned his name was) said that that may be the case, but the fact is that there are bad people in the world and that you had to chose who to be with very carefully. he said that i shouldn't even trust him.
we walked along in silence for a while
i said that i mostly enjoyed being by myself but that i was also very interested in meeting other people and discovering their way of looking at the world.
- all very well - said mustafah - but you have to be careful with who you spend your time.
after another long pause mustafah stopped and said that he was also a solitary person.
he gave me a long, unflinching, indecifirable contact of eyes and said that he had learned to be alone during his 22 years in prison.
imediately i wanted to ask him how he now regarded those 22 years but instead i asked whether he was in the cell alone and what contact he had with other inmates and he spoke about prison routines and ended up talking about other things.
i asked him if he liked reading and was glad to give him a spanish book which i had aquired and was looking for an opportunity to give to someone. he was grateful.
from his pocket he fished out a necklace made with a shell and gave it to me.
we were at the border and it was full of bustle. an officious behaving man came up and got me organised with my passport out and filling out the form. then he asked for 10 euros in order to receive the border stamp. i looked reluctantly to mustafah and asked if he could give back one of the euros i had so recently given him. the other man was very insistent that i give even more - at least 5 euros - he said; but i decided to go up to the border point myself and see myself through.
- a case in point - said mustafah. it doesnt cost anything to cross the border. - be careful of others- he warned me once again - always view other people with suspicion. only trust in yourself and your own shadow. as we shook hands and parted he repeated these words as if they were the most important message he had to pass on.
he indicated to me the directions to the moroccan border and then said he would come with me for the short walk. he said he had fifteen days off work and had nothing else to do.
he told me that i should be careful in morocco; that not everyone is a good person. that, in fact, most people are bad.
this perturbed me.
i said i thought most people were good, or at least had the potential to be good.
this he agreed with, but he reaffirmed that most people chose not to be good.
i said that people have only one true experience of life - their own - and that perhaps when considering the life experience of other people, they take the example of their own life and project it on to others. for example perhaps some good people (being naive) think that everyone else in the world is also good. and that some bad people, going by their own experience of themselves, believe that everyone else is bad.
mustafah (i learned his name was) said that that may be the case, but the fact is that there are bad people in the world and that you had to chose who to be with very carefully. he said that i shouldn't even trust him.
we walked along in silence for a while
i said that i mostly enjoyed being by myself but that i was also very interested in meeting other people and discovering their way of looking at the world.
- all very well - said mustafah - but you have to be careful with who you spend your time.
after another long pause mustafah stopped and said that he was also a solitary person.
he gave me a long, unflinching, indecifirable contact of eyes and said that he had learned to be alone during his 22 years in prison.
imediately i wanted to ask him how he now regarded those 22 years but instead i asked whether he was in the cell alone and what contact he had with other inmates and he spoke about prison routines and ended up talking about other things.
i asked him if he liked reading and was glad to give him a spanish book which i had aquired and was looking for an opportunity to give to someone. he was grateful.
from his pocket he fished out a necklace made with a shell and gave it to me.
we were at the border and it was full of bustle. an officious behaving man came up and got me organised with my passport out and filling out the form. then he asked for 10 euros in order to receive the border stamp. i looked reluctantly to mustafah and asked if he could give back one of the euros i had so recently given him. the other man was very insistent that i give even more - at least 5 euros - he said; but i decided to go up to the border point myself and see myself through.
- a case in point - said mustafah. it doesnt cost anything to cross the border. - be careful of others- he warned me once again - always view other people with suspicion. only trust in yourself and your own shadow. as we shook hands and parted he repeated these words as if they were the most important message he had to pass on.
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