Thought For Food
Beggars are a part of the folklore surrounding tourism like souvenir shops and people dressed in traditional garb handing out invites into restaurants in the Old Town with all sorts of traditional Ottoman dishes on the menu. From the world-famous ćevapčići and dolma to desserts like baklava. During tourist season you’ll find beggars in parking lots for busses that come over from Croatia for daily excursions but also in various place in the historic centre where you can see Roma boys singing sevdah or women sitting on the cobbles, holding a baby in their arms. I tend to be suspicious about the motherly figures because you never know if the baby is truly theirs. But the children make a different, touching impression where a thought cuts into you like a knife that a kid of that age shouldn’t be doing this. That it needs a proper lunch, a bath and education.
Some of them manage to pull out and build a career but there are far too few to not to be called the exception to the rule. There are a few of them I remember fondly, but they are those people that disappear from your life once you stop running into them on a regular basis. One of them was dressed in a grey suit, maybe one size too big. He would be standing on a street corner near the Old town and sing the same song every time I would pass by. You might say he tried to polish it to perfection or at least to the best of his vocal abilities. Standing upright up there, skinny and with a full head of hair, there was a plastic box at his feet that was never full, but neither completely empty. And there was an another one, whom I had met only one time and since have wished to see him again.
I was waiting for a group of tourists to arrive and he approached me. Probably not more than 10 years old, skinny, sitting on a bench close to me. I was expecting a stretched out palm with a plea for some money, but instead, he startled me in a different way. He asked me to teach him to read. In that moment, I almost wished for the group to cancel and to waver my money for the day. And to spend it with the boy, employing my skills to at least trying to teach him how to spell his own name. There was a plate on the wall describing the history of the monastery in front of which we were sitting. It was a delightful challenge for what I could teach him would be a bigger gift than anything else that day. Because unlike his earnings, his employers couldn’t take literacy away from him.
I don’t fancy myself as a supernatural saviour of the illiterate and underprivileged. There are far more competent or experienced people to do that. But that day, for a brief moment, it was up to me and I was glad to oblige him and my degree didn’t feel like a waste of time. We didn’t get to do much because the bus arrived soon. But hopefully it tickled him to keep learning until he could spell the whole alphabet, not just the letters in the word “HELP”. Who knows what happened to him. Hopefully he got out of there and made something of himself. There must be more to look forward to for Roma children in the future than begging. It’s a system that keeps them trapped in a subcultural circle that can’t find a way to productively coexist with others, instead of sitting on the fringe of society.
We need to find a way to need each other and that can’t be achieved only through social services. It requires a broader strategy of long-term inclusion that won’t alienate either the Roma or the broader community. If everyone don’t participate in the social contract, the loose ends will get in the way of outreach which should be the foundation of progress. For it only makes sense when it is truly collective.
And then there was the case of a fire in a furniture shop. The whole place burned down, with a man trapped inside who couldn’t manage make it out alive. What he left behind was a family and his father, an old man with a long white beard, dark skin and pale blue eyes. He’d be sitting in the street close to a grocery shop, on a piece of cardboard on the sidewalk. Every now and then, I’d run into him and gradually started to say hello. He didn’t exude an air of pity or pain. There was dignity and pride to him. Humility and humanity, willingness to help. I witnessed that when I saw a homeless man sleeping in front of a ruin, wrapped into a blanket with a plastic bottle next to him. I imagined it to be a bottle of beer and it was.
When it happened the third time, a slight fear overcame me, thinking this man was sleeping outside in the cold in the middle of winter. And having a drinking problem on top of all that. It was a disturbing thought and it wasn’t fair. Just like those two kids, he deserved better. When we met again, he told me it was in fact an another man who came over from a different city after a fight with his family. He had the habit of spending too much money on booze, in spite of my friend’s efforts to help. Yet I didn’t know anything about the grocery store guy apart from the fact that he lost his son in such a sudden and tragic way. The next time we crossed paths, he was with his grandson, a child looking so unassuming you’d never guess what his conditions of living were truly like.
One day, the man asked me to buy a trinket for the boy, a Christmas present because he didn’t want him to feel excluded from everything he saw around: families dragging shopping bags with toys and sweets, people in a hurry with wine and cake, last-minute shoppers rushing to malls short before closing time. I put an old sweater of mine and a candy box into a bag and gave it to him.
His gratitude humbled me because this shouldn’t be happening yet it does. I don’t need a medal for giving a helping hand. That’s what life should be about. Helping those in need until there’s no need any more. Or at least, do your bid when you have a chance. Be able to tell a friend from a fraud. If you don’t learn how to do that, you’ll be oiling the machine that feeds those employing children to do their begging for them. They give people like the blue-eyed man a bad name and he shouldn’t have to worry about it.
He even started giving me advice. Some of it I can use, some not. But maybe there’s a bond. There’s hardly more you can do because now it matters. I react when he’s not at his usual spot and wonder if he’ll show up today, subconsciously. When I see him, there’s a slight relief. I don’t want to read in the news he died in obscure circumstances somewhere as well. There are many of those trying to lure out some money out of your pockets in the streets. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll hardly see the difference. One more of those invisible people that make you uncomfortable or annoyed. Some employ tactics hard to ignore.
At the tourist meeting point an elderly beggar used to cry inconsolably to attract attention. She should definitely have been an actress instead. But the grocery store guy has sadness and shame in his blue eyes. He doesn’t seem like a career beggar. If he is, he certainly fooled me. If he isn’t, there is gratitude on both sides here. Even if the helping hand here is mine, it’s not the only one. For immaterial can be invaluable too. The beauty of it is that it can come from the least expected source.
The arrival of immigrants didn’t help the situation. Very often they were met with derision and outright paranoia. People are always afraid of things they are not familiar with. It was like waiting for a rain to pass. But not all of them deserved the treatment they were given by the public. Some were even afraid to contact them. I wanted to do a series of portraits and interviews but it was hard to find a collaborator. When I finally managed to get around it, they were already gone. Almost like lepers. Each one of them. They continued their journey to the next place where they won’t be welcome either. One of them was selling handkerchiefs next to a bridge here. I didn’t stop and ask him how he was doing. Who knows what he’d have said or where he was going.
Compassion is cheap when it’s too abundant. Like that scented candle you find underneath your seat at the Oprah Show. These people need more than scented candles. Who needs those anyway? They are a bit like potpourri. A waste of money and a bad excuse for a gift. My grocery store friend asked me to help him and write a plea for help in English. It reads: “Love feeds my soul but food feeds the body. Please help.” Obviously, it isn’t the best of my literary accomplishments but I hope it will do. And I don’t even know his name yet. It never occured me to ask. By now we’re familiar enough to change that. For only things that have a name truly exist. And the grocery store guy certainly does, flesh and blood. His isn’t a singing voice but he doesn’t have a choice either. Those who do should count their blessings. And use a few to make a difference. For the strength of a chain is measured by the resilience of its weakest parts.
