Published Story
The Journey of the Stolen Salt Holder: A Tale of Guilt, Forgiveness, and Redemption
I remember one tourist in particular, a German man who had bought some food from us for his long bus journey. He had taken a salt holder from us without asking and didn't even realize it until he got back to Germany....
NAMIK BEY (interviewee): Hippies, their belief was like this “no war, there is love” This was their slogan. They were good people, we never had any harm from them. Some didn’t have money, they would eat and go. Then they’d send the money in an envelope. They had carbon envelopes, and the money in them wouldn’t be recognized. They sent their debts in those envelopes. We always received our money. They were loyal to their debts.
SİNAN (interviewer): They were loyal to their debts and paid everything…
NAMIK BEY: back then, there wasn’t any order-taking paper. They come and say “I ate this and that” Turks however forget, they don’t remember all the details of their order. In other words, payment is forgotten, but tourists were different. For example, I told about the salt holder. We were sending goods to India as charity. Busses came here every day. The traffic wasn’t like this then. One bus was going east one was going west road. We were finding traveling customers for the busses, and they go. One of them bought some tomatoes, cucomber and bread fort he trip. Young people used to eat those kind of things back then. He didnt know what he would find to eat on the way. He took the salt from us and forgot about it. He was German. He returned to Germany and kept the salt holder for 20-30 years, thinking that he was a thief and taking it, that he should have asked for permission. He took the salt holder and put it in a beautiful place in his house so that he wouldn’t break or harm it. It was glass material. Sometime later he came to us with a box of chocolate. He said “I am sorry, I did this and that… I brought you chocolate, please forgive me”
SİNAN: He, himself came…?
NAMIK BEY: He did, yes.
SİNAN: He didn’t send it by cargo instead he came.