Marina

            It was seven a.m. and Peter Anadre relaxed in the owner’s corner of his new BMW X6 Jeep. He loved this car, particularly for its tasteful interior, its comfort and its excellent engine performance. To him it was truly ‘the ultimate driving machine’. However, he hardly drove the car these days; the more he climbed the ladder of success, the more he had to depend on Usman, his chauffeur, for his travels. Most often he made use of the few hours in the car to study reports and memos, to catch up on some reading or to meditate in preparation for major decisions that he would have to make during the day. The pressure of his work on his thoughts was not so stifling this morning and so he decided to browse through the day’s paper to keep him abreast of developments around the globe.

            The traffic was bad as usual. He realised that they had been at a standstill for a few minutes, and looked up. The car was on the outer lane of the road and he had a clear view of the few ships docked along the Marina. They were giant vessels but looked forgotten and derelict. He wondered if they were really safe to ply the waters.

            Something else caught his attention. Along the harbour was a grown man taking his bath. He had soap lather all over his body, and didn’t seem to care that he was naked. The man bent over to pour a little more water over himself before continuing to scrub away. Peter couldn’t believe his eyes. Was the man mad? He looked further down the pier and noticed that there were more of them. He counted; about twelve naked bathing men dotted the shores, not caring that the world was watching. One more joined them. He dropped the bucket of water he was carrying onto the grass, and began to strip. Obviously he planned to take a bath too.

            Peter’s heart sank under a sudden weight of sadness. Did these men not have a home, a place where they could take a bath in private, as every adult deserved? Even though he was seeing this tragic spectacle for the first time today, it looked like it might be an everyday occurrence.

            As the traffic eased and they moved along slowly, he was faced with another sober sight. Two grown men squatted with their trousers down to their ankles, obviously emptying their bowels, again in broad daylight. He decided to look away and render them some privacy. His expression was grim and his heart heavy as he folded the newspaper away, and withdrew into his thoughts.

            However, this was a day where he was not to find that kind of retreat. A tap on the car window drew his attention back to the outside world.  A young disheveled girl of about thirteen, alternated between praising him, praying for him and begging him for ‘some loose change’. Beggars of all ages were a common sight in Petat, and he was about to return to his reading, when something else captured his attention for good. The girl had a baby, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen months, strapped to her back. The baby was also staring at him with pleading eyes and had her hand upturned in a beggarly fashion. Obviously, she couldn’t understand what she was doing; just that it made sense to mimic the only rewarding action she had observed in her world. 

            Peter’s grief deepened.