Usman

Meet Usman. Tonight's gift. We were eating at a street cafe, enjoying our shawarma when he came, lugging his heavy keyboard and sat in the table next to ours.

He played, "where do I begin to tell the story..." And it was indeed a night of stories.

His first story was how today,  he wore a woman's pair of shoes over his shoulders and played on the streets. He said it was in honor of the women for today's Intl Women's Day. Then he said, nowadays you can find Chekov's and Sarte's books being sold on the streets, very cheap. But shoes, they placed on fancy display cases and sold at such steep prices. It tells you that nowadays, cultivating the mind is not priced (or prioritized) very high.

He then proceeded to tell us about his daughter who came home one day and announced she had fallen greatly inlove. Now, in this context that's not something any daughter can say. She'd end up really hurt (or even worse) from doing so. He said, he stopped playing the piano, stood up and kissed her hand. Then he said, "Good for you!"

The next day, the man came asking for her hand in marriage saying he's ready to buy all the gold that he would require of him for her. He told him, "I don't need your gold for my daughter. What I want you to do is to buy her flowers everyday." Then he told us, to this day, he still brings her flowers... It was but an hour of conversation but eternities were exchanged. He said at one point, we all are but stories. Indeed... Indeed. What story are you leaving the world? #fellowtraveller #stories #travels #passingthrough #today'sgem #traveltreasures