TALES
FROM THE BALCONY
Mustapha’s
Tale
The sundowner
drink is one that we take at the Hera bar at the end of the day. It gives
people a chance to reflect on the day and talk leisurely about everything and
nothing. It’s also a chance for visitors
to chat to local people who have ventured to the bar for a quiet drink.
It was on
one such evening I found myself talking to Mustapha who runs a local business;
he and his family have lived in and around Gumusluk all their lives. He told me a story his father had told him,
this is Mustapha’s Tale.......
A wealthy
American visited Gumusluk in the 1960’s. He moored his boat in the harbour and
wandered along the bay. On his walk he came across an old man sitting on a
rock, sipping a Raki and lazily staring at the sun setting into the sea. The
American noticed that there were olive trees growing in a field behind the old
man but they were untended, with olives dropping here and there onto the
ground. He asked the old man who the trees belonged to.
‘They’re
mine’ the old man replied
‘Don’t you
gather the olives ?’ the American asked
‘I just
pick one when I want one’ the old man replied.
‘Don’t
you realise if you pruned the trees and picked the olives at their peak you
could sell them? In America everyone is
crazy about virgin olive oil, and they would pay a damned good price for it.’
‘What
would I do with the money?’ the old man asked.
‘Why you
could buy yourself a big house and hire servants to do everything for you.’
‘And then
what would I do?’
‘You could
do anything you want’
‘You mean,
like sit outside and sip Raki at sunset?’
To see a typical Gumusluk sunset at ‘sundowner
drinking time’ please go to:
Lovely story
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