My trip to Morocco was motivated by the search for a cheap locale and a slight desire for adventure. I flew to Casablanca via Paris-very romantic, very Bogie. It was obvious that my friends and I are foreign-me not so much, my Aryan-looking roommate a little more. I claim Canadian citizenship and still get rooked on my first ride in a “petit taxi,” paying 500% more than the ride should be. Not too big of a deal, though, for my Moroccan vacation will cost approximately nothing compared to a week back on campus. The money goes so far that I feel like throwing it up into the air and playing semi-wealthy for a few days. I don’t give my cash to any homeless people, though. That’s where my giddiness stops. I hate them.
Being from New York, I’ve been duly trained to see through people. For me, bums do not exist. One may be kneeling at my feet, but he does not exist. Another may be softly pleading, “sir” and he also is a non-person. I am a bastard and hold great resentment towards them in every way. Even using the word “bum” instead of something more compassionate is a holdover from my childhood, when I used to see them everywhere.
Bums still pop up every now and again, on the periphery of my vision. This usually occurs when I walk by a man, eyes locked forward, head unmoving and he says, “God Bless You.” A very calculated move, designed to wring from my being the maximum amount of guilt possible. I dislike him even more after this. Such nonsense does not fly in Morocco, though. They are much more advanced.
On the flight over, I read Dave Eggers’ You Shall Know Our Velocity, and the book resonated. It’s about two guys who come into some money and decide to go around the world in a week and give it all away. I am doing neither, but I travel to Marakkesh, as they do, and spend a week silently suffering under the weight of Western guilt, a powerful thing to carry around on one’s Spring Break.
In Italy and Spain, beggars lie prostrate on sidewalks, arms stretched out holding cups or hats. It’s surprising not to see their faces and I thought, “It must be a Catholic thing.” Being a Papist myself, I am an expert in shame and understand the desire for self-flagellation. Still, I remain stalwart, cold, unfeeling. Eggers-”You withhold and you run counter to your instincts.” I see myself in these words, but rationalize that the morality of giving is much more complex than that. It’s the arbitrary nature of the whole thing that gets to me. Who shall I toss a buck to and why do they deserve it more than that person over there? There is too much uncertainty and too much control over others. I feel dirty whether I help a homeless person or not, so I just try to stay out of their way.
Usually, there is an invisible five foot semicircular area in front of beggars that I avoid, believing that staying out of that area will deflect any harassment. The Moroccan poor, though, are ignorant of my disdain. Men, women and children walk right up to me, follow me, stare at me. Tiny grandmothers swaddled in omnivorous burkas hold out miniscule hands, wrinkled as if the women soaked them for fun. Such a detail seems to speak to a life of hardship that I will never know and I shake my head and avert my eyes. She follows me for half a block more then tails off and disappears.
Eggers-”I hated mothers who brought their children to the streets.” I hate to depend on the words of others, but I share a similar distaste and find myself recalling the sentence. Even worse are kids who bring other kids to the street. As I sat at a sidewalk caf? in Marakkesh, leisurely drinking a 50-cent coffee, a girl that could not have been more than nine years old walks up to me. She balances a baby on her hip with one arm, both their faces equally dingy. I rotate my chair away and she swivels to position herself in my line of sight, trying to catch my eye with hers.
Two minutes later, she was replaced by a boy beating a small drum, trying to entertain me enough for me to throw him a couple of dirham, the equivalent of twenty cents. I cannot. I would rather bring the local money home to show people and have as a shiny souvenir. There is also the fear that the moment I cave, hundreds of other kids will emerge from alleyways and surround my table and overpower me and I will never escape. Late that night, in the Djema al-Fna, I see the boy again, running and crying at the top of his lungs. The small drum is nowhere to be seen and I imagine that the little girl with the baby stole it.
I can’t look because it gets me weepy, so I deaden my soul and amazingly, millions of people vanish. Most homeless people don’t deserve anything that happens to them, small Moroccan children least of all. Finally, out of sight, I give a good deal of money to a kid who reminds me of my little brother. I feel awful both before and after and I know not what to do. He is no Wisey’s bum, a man who makes a living out of manipulating guilt. I turn around and smile and he smiles back and then I turn around and leave. On the flight back, I read Eggers’ book again and try to figure out why those two guys gave away all that money. I don’t understand it and I realize nothing has changed.
I just lost a buck, that’s all.
Gilbert Cruz is a senior in the College. He’ll rock you like a hurricane.
