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On Saturday night I was in Kalamata for the kids\u2019 sports games. We each ate a souvlaki and then slipped into a pastry shop. We each got a sweet and the kids immediately started devouring them. Finally, since I don\u2019t eat sugar anyway, I changed my mind. Luckily, I had unknowingly taken precautions and had taken it in a packet rather than in hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the way home, I saw a man in his 60s, in black clothes, rummaging through the garbage cans. He was pulling out trash and separating it into two (at least that\u2019s what it looked like from a distance). I approached him and asked, \u201cWould you like a sweet?\u201d And as if I was taking a baseball bat to the head, I heard him reply, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to deprive you of it.\u201d I was speechless. I can\u2019t tell you how embarrassed I felt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This man, who was obviously looking through the trash for either materials that could in any way be marketable (such as recyclables) or things and materials that could be useful to him, thought of me first instead of \u2013 as is only logical \u2013 thinking of himself first (as do the rest of us who have at least solved the issue of meeting our basic needs).\u00a0<\/p>\n
And before I can recover from the dizziness of the first answer, he continues with the next hit, \u201cWhatever you give to us poor people is good for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
I hold out my hand and offer him the box of sweets along with the napkins. He thanked me and while I literally wanted the Earth to open up and swallow me because I remember all the clothes I don\u2019t wear, the food I threw in the trash last week, my daughter\u2019s bag of fruit from school that rotted, the expired yogurt, the bun we didn\u2019t like enough to eat, and the takeaway coffee I bought and eventually threw in the sink, two words were stuck in my head: deprivation (mine) and the (self-proclaimed) poor.<\/p>\n
I take out my wallet and give him 5 euros.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And then he asks me, \u201cWhere are you from?\u201d I say, \u201cFrom Galaxidi.\u201d And he continues, \u201cAre the people who live in Galaxidi good people?\u201d I take a moment to answer him, mostly pondering whether or not I\u2019m really a good person, and with hesitation I reply, \u201cUh, yeah.\u201d And he says to me, \u201cThere are good people in Galaxidi!\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if Galaxidi or any other town for that matter has good people (me first). What I do know is that this man should be delivering classes in schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marina Selini Katsaiti is associate professor and chair of the Department of Economic and Regional Development at the Agricultural University of Athens in Amfissa.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n