Not Everyone Who Brings Something to the Table Eats, and Not Everyone Who Eats Brings Something to the Table

Although once the political capital of western civilization, Rome is now often referred to as the “tourist capital of the world.” From all corners of the globe, visitors seek to take pictures at infamous monuments, such as the Colosseum, where our story begins.

Holding out a single bottle of water, with a thick Indian accent he called out “one Euro, one Euro, ice cold, one Euro.”

“No, grazie,” my girlfriend and I responded as we passed by him. We stopped a few feet away to read a billboard containing the history of the Coliseum while his chant continue.

Several minutes later- a noticeable silence caught my attention. Finally, a buyer for his water. A young man with his parents and younger sister, Italians visiting Rome from outside the city.

But after a few seconds I realized that this young man had no intention of buying the bottle of water. Instead he grabbed the bottle, pretending to inspect it, and ran up a flight of stairs and away (though he did not need to run, since he significantly outsized the seller).

The man stood still, confused. His jaw slowly dropped and all he could do is smile and nod to hold back his fear while the Italian family shrugged their shoulders. They walked away without paying him, avoiding eye contact with everyone who witnessed the incident.

Keeping my eyes on the family, a few minutes later I watched as the son walked back towards them. In his hand he still held the water bottle, until he dropped it in some bushes. The four of them got in line to purchase tickets to the Colosseum (at 12 Euros per person).

I put down my backpack and asked my girlfriend to watch it as I went to pick up the bottle of water. It was still unopened and full. The young man never even intended to drink it.

We walked it back to the seller.

He was still standing in the same spot, this time silent with nothing in his hands. Before he was robbed, he had only one bottle of water for which he sought one Euro. As I approached him from his periphery, I saw a grown man, roughly 45 years old, afraid and at the end of his rope. He had not moved, but he no longer knew where he was.

I tapped him on the shoulder “hey, here” I gave him back his water bottle. “Are you okay?”

He smiled, showing a yellowish set of front teeth that contrasted against his dark skin. “Crazy, he is crazy. He took the bottle and he run.”

He speaks English; smart guy, maybe, I thought.

“Yeah, he’s crazy, forget about him. Are you okay? You speak English?”

“Yes,” adding a hand gesture suggesting that he speaks some English, but it’s not his primary language.

“Where are you from?” Changing the conversation.

“Bangladesh.”

“How long have you lived in Rome?”

“Two years, six months.”

“With your family?”

“No, family too expensive.”

I wasn’t sure whether he meant that he didn’t have a family, or whether he didn’t bring his family with him, but my guess was the former.

“Why did you move here?”

“Job, I come for job. I live here now but if I can get job somewhere else, I will go there.”

“But why did you leave Bangladesh?”

“I work for one company in Bangladesh, but then…” he made a sweeping motion with his hand indicating that he moved-on.

“What did you do there?”

“Computer science. MS DOS, Xcel, Microsoft. I worked in an office. But, you know, no money in Bangladesh.”

“So do you make enough money here?”

No direct response, but rather with his hand and face he gestured again indicating an intermediary response. “It is hard, you know, because there is too many people here. From India, Pakistan, Bangladesh… Afrikanas. And rent is 150 a month, and 150 a month for food. If I have any money left, I send it back to my family in Bangladesh.”

150 Euros a month for food? I thought. That’s 5 Euros a day, which only accounts for a fraction of what we spend on a single meal as tourists. How does this man survive on 5 Euros a day? How about clothing, cell phone, internet? All things we take for granted.

“How do you eat?”

“For lunch I eat out, for dinner I eat at apartment.”

So no breakfast it sounds like.

“Do you ever have difficulty finding food?”

Again, no verbal answer. But this time his hand gesture and his facial expression indicated something along the lines of- “no shit.”

“Do you ever get help?”

“At the apartment they give us one free meal a week.”

My guess was that he lives in shared quarters where he is one of many migrants like himself.

“How about for water?” I asked pointing to his hand that now held the water bottle once again.

He chuckled a little and put his hands on his hips. “No bottles, only fountains.” (Luckily in Rome drinkable water fountains can be found all around the city).

“Has that ever happened to you before?” Pointing in the direction of where the young man ran off.

“Yes.” A brief and serious answer.

I didn’t want to ask him anymore about the incident because I noticed a sense of distress returned.

“Okay, you try to forget about it. What is your name?”

“Abdul.” Though he hesitated in a way that told me that Abdul, an Arab name, was not his real name.

“Okay Abdul, we have to go.”

“So you take the water, one Euro.” A sudden resurgence of the salesman.

“No, thank you, I have water.”

“Only one Euro.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out some change short of one Euro, “keep the bottle, sell it to someone else.”

We walked off.

“You know he expected you to pay him for asking him those questions.” My girlfriend told me.

An astute observation.

“Maybe, but it was worth the information.”

In 2015, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations found that, globally, one in nine individuals suffers from food insecurity and does not have enough food to live healthy active lives. Meanwhile, roughly 40 percent of all food is wasted from the time it leaves the farm to the time we are done consuming it at the dinner table. Abdul (or the gentleman calling himself Abdul) is the one in six who does not always know where he will find his next meal. On the other hand, the young Italian man who stole the water bottle from him, based on my limited observations of his intent to waste it, represents of one of the biggest sources of food waste- uneducated consumers.

So that leaves us to ask, why the disconnect?

One possible answer will be described in our next article.