It was the summer 2009, and my parents and I were on vacation in Morocco. Being only twelve years old at the time, my idea of the scope of human emotion was very narrow. True love, true kindness, true hate, and true greed were fairytale concepts in my eyes. But a week in the city of Marrakech would change my worldview dramatically. It was on that trip that I met Nahid.

My parents and I were in Morocco for a conference that my mother had been invited to. While she worked, my father and I would walk around the city, losing ourselves in Marrakech’s maze of back alleyways lined with shops that sold colorful bags, jewelry, spices, and special Moroccan shoes called baboushes. Never had I been in a place as flavorful as the Moroccan bazaar, called the “Souks” by the natives. The hot sun radiating down on us, the intense smells of mint tea and leather being made, the musty air, and the noises of the relentless shopkeepers as they descended upon wealthy, unsuspecting tourists-- it was a combination that drowned me in a violent wave of rich culture.

At one point, we decided to venture off of the main alley road and turned onto a crooked, very narrow side street. As we walked along, the crowds of people began to thin, to the point that there was hardly anybody along the path. The shops lining its sides looked rather barren, their products looked slightly dulled and dirty, and their owners looked desperate. The owner of one of these shops ran out to us, dangling dusty, lopsided purses in our faces, entreating us to get something. (“You buy! You buy!”).

My father and I were just about to turn around and walk back when, out of nowhere, a group of young boys burst out of a shop just across the street, calling out Arabic insults. For a split second, I thought they were just playing with one another. But then I saw him.

He was a teenage boy, no older than fifteen, with dark, matted hair, and a face so sun-exposed that his skin was almost black, ill-suited to his Mediterranean features. His large eyes, black and bloodshot, were at that moment filled with predatory fury as he chased the boys. He held a small, curved switchblade in one hand. When the boys turned onto the main road, he stopped abruptly, only a few yards from us.

My dad and I felt that this was a good moment to get out of the area, and we began to discretely walk toward the main road ourselves. But before we had taken more than a few steps, we heard a bloodcurdling scream, and turned to see the boy with the knife rush back into the shop. Curious, I dodged my father’s attempted restraints, rushed back as well, and peered into the tiny store.

What I saw there has been imprinted on my mind ever since. A young woman lay in the middle of the shop. A dusty rug was the only thing separating her from the dirt of the ground. Her eyes were tightly closed in pain, and her dark hair was wet and knotted with sweat. She waved her hands ferociously around her swollen belly, desperate for someone or something to clutch to. She was in labor. The boy with the knife (I assumed he was her brother) was crouched over her, the fury of his eyes changed to fearful compassion. He dabbed a moist cloth on her head and held her hand as she went into another contraction.

I could hear my father in the background, calling me to come back, the sound of his footsteps growing louder. The boy’s head shot up at the noise and he caught sight of me peeking in. To this day, I will never know if he was entreating me to help him or if he was sending me away. He simply started to shout at me in Arabic. His words were neither angry nor pleading, but merely frantic as he flapped his arms about violently. I caught the glint of his knife in one hand, and instinctively fled. Together, my father and I returned to the main road.

Dad had not seen the pregnant woman, and I was simply too dumbstruck to say anything. The drama of those two minutes and the horror of that girl’s traumatic ordeal played over and over again in mind. Unsettled, I was unable to sum up the sense to actually try to help her, to perhaps call an ambulance. By the time we arrived at our guesthouse, about an hour later, I realized how important it was that I at least tell my parents, but I knew that there was no way for us to navigate our way back to that spot in time.
* * *

A few nights later, the king of Morocco hosted a banquet for my mother’s conference. It was held not far from the Souks that my dad and I had visited. The dining hall was a small white structure, squeezed in among the much more authentic looking Moroccan buildings. Indeed, the banquet hall, with its European grandeur and gilded ceilings was entirely out of place with the spirit of the city. While the streets of Marrakech were full of spice, color, and flavor, this building was bland and emitted tackiness rather than the elegance it strived to achieve.

Within, the hall was filled with twenty or so round tables, fit into a perfect grid. They were lined with the classic white tablecloth, and a large bouquet of fake flowers sat in the center of each. We took our seats, eight to a table. My parents and I sat with some Indian colleagues of my mother’s, several of whom were vegetarian. In fact, at least a quarter of the people at the conference were South Asian and likely to be vegetarian.

Once we had all taken our seats, a group of uniformly dressed waiters marched in, soldier-like in their line up. Each table was brought an array of delicate chocolates, which were arranged into a perfect floral shape on the plate.

“The waiter tells me it’s Swiss chocolate. That’s exactly what I want when I come to Morocco,” my dad commented sarcastically. Still, the chocolates were delicious. In hindsight, the vegetarians should have filled up on them.

The next course was finally something authentic. We were served a savory, meat-filled pastry, a pastilla. It was delicious, but each table received its own pastilla with a diameter greater than that of a car tire. The four of us who could eat meat were hardly able to eat a fraction of it, and by the time we had, we were stuffed full. Little did we know that we had three courses left to go.

Next was the classic Moroccan chicken stew, or tagine. The unique clay pots that tagines are cooked and served in are generally the size of any ordinary pot. But the king had to make sure that this was no ordinary feast. Not only did each pot equal, if not exceed the width of the pastilla; within each pot, for each table of eight, there lay five whole chickens. The vegetarians looked about in dismay.

Morocco is known for its impressive lamb dishes, and that night was no exception. After the untouched chicken was taken away, each table was brought a platter holding an entire lamb’s body, head and all. I think it was at this point that the vegetarians lost what had been very large appetites.

For dessert, we were served a pile of grapes.

As we were finishing up the meal, I walked outside to find the bathrooms, which were in another building. The moment I stepped outside, I was back in Marrakech, surrounded by the city’s nightlife: by vendors and street performers and outdoor parties. These people were the poor working class, who would have given anything to have a chance to eat the meal I was just given. I noticed several waiters along the side of the banquet hall, and walked behind the building to investigate.

As street onlookers watched from behind a fence, the waiters disposed of the leftover food from that night into a massive dumpster. I counted as each uneaten lamb carcass was thrown in, one by one. One lamb, two lambs, three lambs...twenty lambs slaughtered, ignored, and trashed in a single night. I looked at the homeless man I had passed on my way to the hall as he watched the chickens now being tossed into the mess. I felt ashamed.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a familiar figure surreptitiously climbing the fence. His face had played through my mind enough times over those last few days, and I recognized him immediately. It was the boy with the knife. But this time, he was not carrying a switchblade, but a tiny bundle. So the baby had been born!

I rushed over to the boy, who was still hidden in the dark. He seemed completely unstartled by my sudden presence. I was surprised by the warm look in his eyes, and by the friendliness and intelligence with which he carried himself. This time, my mind was entirely clear as to what to do. I was spurred on by his lack of ferocity. Using my year and a half’s worth of French, I asked him if he knew the language. He did. I congratulated him on the birth of the baby and asked about his sister.

“My sister?” he responded. “No, I did not know that girl. I found her by herself that day and I knew that she needed help.”

“But why do you have her child now?’ I asked, shocked.

“Could you not see? She was sick. She died soon after her baby was born.”

“And now you are simply going to raise it?”

“Of course.”

The shame welled up inside of me again. I had been just as much a stranger to that poor girl as this impoverished boy had been. And yet he was the one to take care of her, and more importantly, of the child she had left behind. He was still a child himself! I could think of nothing to do but to offer him some money, which he gladly took, and to wish him luck. Before I walked away, I asked him his name.

“Nahid,” he responded.

Nahid. It was one of the few Arabic words I knew. It meant “generosity.” I walked away, musing upon how fitting that was, when I suddenly heard a loud shriek from one of the waiters.

“Thief! Thief!” he shouted in French, pointing at the spot where the waiters delivered the food to be thrown in the dumpster. The last thing to be dropped off was a full plate of grapes. Behind it stood Nahid, holding a single bunch of grapes in one hand, his baby in the other.

“Move, girl!” came a voice from behind me. It was a security guard from the front entrance.

“No!” I shouted. “He has done nothing wrong. No one would have eaten those anyway!”

“It is a crime to steal from the king, mademoiselle. You should understand this.”

“But he has a baby,” I cried. But it was too late. The guard had already pushed passed me and had handcuffed my new friend. I searched frantically for the baby, but it was no where in sight. I chased after the guard as he forced Nahid into a police car. But it was no use. Generosity is worthless in this world.