davethegrinch.net

Dave Says:
The wonder of the world in general lies in the beauty of the small and simple coming together to make the large and complex. For example, DNA to cells to an individual human to a family to a community to a town to a country and so on. The strength of the larger entity relies on the integrity of it’s components. A few bad cells can be policed by the good ones but what happens when the good cells are overpowered by the sheer number and intent of the miscreants? Why the anthropology lesson? Well, I was asked by my good friend Ms. Hearn what was it I was hoping to learn or discover during our travels. I answered quickly believing the truthful answers lie just beneath the surface. I answered that I wished to know if mankind was basically good; were the good cells winning their eternal battle against those who would seek to destroy the whole. Then, a few hours later, I had my camera stolen!

For reasons too embarrassing to enter into, suffice to say cheap 5 euro wine was involved, I left my camera at a cafe. Upon my hurried return, not five minutes later, by a miracle of evolution, it had grown legs and walked. Fortunately, I had just backed up my images so nothing of importance was lost. I was, as expected, a little upset but in an attempt to look at it magnanimously I chalked it up to a lethal cocktail of my own stupidity blended with a little kismet. I bought a new camera the next day and shed a few tears as my credit card was swiped through the machine.

Two weeks later, I had that camera stolen as well. For reasons too embarrassing to enter into, suffice to say cheap 5 euro wine was involved, I left my camera at a cafe. Upon my hurried return (we were only in the next room), by a second miracle of evolution, it had grown legs and walked. Two such miracles in a catholic country should be enough to put the pope on his papal jet - destination Portugal.

So, lessons to be learnt. Firstly, I’m stupid. Secondly, Sarah and I had let our guard down induced by a civilized country and the familiarity of eating and drinking with our friends. I write this entry not to convince you, the reader, of anything else but those two newbie traveller mistakes. However, here’s the thing that I really can’t beat from my head and my heart. How can we travel round the poorest nations on earth and have nothing happen to us more serious than a disputed hotel bill? Yet, here we are, in a rich western European country and nobody has the integrity to turn in a camera bag left on a seat in a cafe. How is it that the wealthy people, the people who comparatively have everything they need, find it irresistible to steal something that will give them nothing but a few euros of guilt dyed money? For a country that’s 95% catholic there’s a good chance that the two individuals responsible will either be lying during their next confession or fingering that rosary for a while. Now, I’m not nieve enough to believe that wouldn’t happen in Nepal, India or Vietnam but it never did yet it could easily have and I would have understood because when you don’t earn enough money to afford shoes, every rupee counts. To add insult to injury, and without pointing fingers of accusation, I believe my second camera was lifted by fellow tourists. Now you have the extra whammy of it being stolen by someone who could afford to take a vacation and probably had a camera they would be most upset by should it and their holiday snaps disappear. So, again, I deserved the first one, I was dealt a really bum hand by the travel gods on the second but mainly and upsettingly and frustratingly I think the bad cells are winning. My ethos of treating others how you would like yourself to be treated may just be an acronistic commandment like, for example, coveting thy neighbor’s ox.

Postscript:
Since writing this entry another event occurred to simultaneously reaffirm my distaste for the rich but untrustworthy Europeans and further prove there is honor amongst the less wealthy. We took a cab from the centre of Marrakech to the bus station. It’s about 5km. Here, in Morroco you have to barter for everything and it took us three cab drivers to finally find one who would take us to the bus station for the 15dh ($2) we know it costs. The guy took us there and then, as cab drivers do, he left. Thirty minutes later, just as our bags were being put on the bus, seconds before we were to leave Marrakech for good there’s a tap on my shoulder. There’s the cab driver again, looking rather relieved holding out a black case. The case turns out to be Sarah’s glasses. She had left them on the back seat of the cab and the driver must have got all the way back into town before seeing them and then rushed all the way out again to catch us before the bus left. He looked very happy that he had managed to find us in time but not as happy as Sarah was I can assure you. So, here we are again - another one of those lessons about the human condition with no concrete answers.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 6:52 am and is filed under Europe, Global Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.