‘Baksheesh? ‘Baksheesh?’ begged the cripple outside the barred jail window. No problem! – he’d been supplying us sustenance these last two days.
How’d I find myself in a North African police lockup? I’d been hitchhiking north of the Sahara; Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, when two bedraggled and desperate looking hippies in a Holy-Mary-blue VW van pulled over. That night I slept outside rather than brave the volatile fug of hashish and farts inside the van!
Near Bizerte, a daft soldier, lookin’ to meet the Babyjesus or Allah, came pedaling furiously at us and left a dent the shape of his head on the side of our van. As we swerved to avoid him the door slid open and our two dozen wine bottles full of ‘Sahara survival water’ smashed all over the road.
A policeman arrived and, though we tried to assure him we were not drunk, he locked us up. Lucky he never found the hash stashed all over the van!
That bent little man with the crutch kept us fed and we were very happy to pay him (and later that policeman) ‘baksheesh’ as he passed food and drink through the bars of that concrete oven of a cell.

over 1 year ago · report