If you saw a wallet lying on the street, you’d pick it up, yeah? And, when you checked the cards inside and found the identity of the owner, you’d do your utmost to find a way to get it back to them, right?
Would it make any difference to you whether there was $200 inside it, or $2? During this challenging Covid-19 time, would you be more, or less, inclined to pick it up and return it? What about if you were struggling and really needed the money that was inside it? Would it make any difference to you if the photo of the owner looked like someone from a different ‘tribe’ (skin colour, young, elderly, seemingly richer, or poorer and so on)? Or would none of those considerations even cross your mind?
Early last week I listened to an inspiring interview, with a Dutch historian whose research suggests humankind is more defined by kindness, friendliness, loyalty and supportiveness… than by selfishness, violence and uncooperation. In his new book Humankind, A Hopeful History, Rutger Bregman explains that humans have survived and evolved to create cohesive societies as a result of our inherent caring natures, rather than from our well known uglier attributes. He believes humankind is strong because for millennia we have worked together and supported each other. The interview warmed my heart and lifted me up.
Sadly something happened to me later last week which caused me to slump back down for a couple of days, and led me to question the goodness of humanity.
Thursday was our food order day. The ocean was rough, so Made and I stayed at home. When the boat captain phoned me to say the shopping was almost there, I hopped on my bicycle to race down to the beach.
We’d only ordered a few things so I thought I could manage it myself. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bigger load than I thought. But rather than doing it in a couple of trips, I balanced the boxes across the top of the bike’s basket and handlebars. I wedged my wallet, with my iPhone inside it, between the bottom box and the edge of the basket (big mistake). As soon as I got home I saw it hadn’t made it back with me.
Most of us have misplaced a wallet or phone at some stage in our lives and we know what happens. The world sort of stops and all we can think about is finding it asap.
About eight years ago I had a much loved second-hand blackberry that fell out of my pocket when I was blissfully walking along the water’s edge of Kingy beach. I retraced my steps within minutes of losing it, but it had already been sucked by the waves down under the sand to join the crabs. I had no hope of ever finding that phone.
I lost a camera in Noosa Headland once, on a weekend break just after my mother-in-law passed away in my home. I didn’t realise till I got back to the carpark, and then madly ran back the few kilometres to Hell’s Gates where I’d left it. But it was gone. I was distraught because there were photos of my mother-in-law on it, and all the flowers people had sent. Amazingly, three months later, the police returned it to me. Someone had handed it in (but because of bureaucracy, it took them months to notify me). That episode gave me so much faith in humanity, during a painful time.
Mostly I’ve been lucky. Each time I’ve retraced my steps, hiding the feelings of panic inside me. And then felt relief washing over me when I found it sitting right where I’d left it on a shop counter or on a park bench.
So I didn’t panic too much this time, even though, stupidly, there was a lot of money in my wallet (I’d recently collected a month’s rent on behalf of a friend who’s not here, from a tenant who’s staying in his house). Logic told me my wallet had simply flopped down onto the road, and because the road was virtually deserted, it should still be there.
I got straight back on my bike and rode hell-for-leather the kilometre or so back to the beach with my eyes peeled on the road. I tried not to imagine nor believe that someone would ‘take’ it.
This time I wasn’t lucky. It’d been literally five minutes between it falling somewhere and me riding back along the scene of the loss/crime; yet it had disappeared.
That’s when the panic set in a bit. Living on a remote little island in Indonesia, which is still in lockdown, and where there are no banks or phone shops or even a post office, dealing with the drama of cancelling and replacing cards or phones would not be fun. There was also sentimental value in the wallet, as it is a much loved gift from my daughter.
A friend of mine, and Made, and another kind local man had all ridden off to search the same short section of road between our house and the beach. We all asked the villagers hanging out in their gardens if anybody knew anything.
By then, it was well past siesta-time, and the locals had started to get out and about. A group of about 30 men were gathering on the football field to play with wooden spinning-tops, a traditional sport that’s become popular again during lockdown.
I stopped at the field and called out to one of the older men, a leader in our own village. Several of the men and young guys stopped and held onto their spinning-tops, so they could look and listen. Some nodded and looked concerned. But nobody knew anything and the man I spoke with, kindly said they’d all keep an eye out.
My phone is the first iPhone I’ve ever purchased. It cost me a fortune, and we’re inseparable. My gut was sinking. But I kept searching, peering into the weeds and bushes that line the road, just in case. I rode past the football field several times. My head knew I wouldn’t find it, but my heart wouldn’t believe someone would take it.
‘Surely, on this lovely little island, during these tough times, whoever found it will return it,’ I kept telling myself. I so wanted to believe in the goodness of people, and in this little island, where crime is almost non-existent.
At one point Made told me he’d also spoken to the men on the field. One of the men there had said, ‘If someone finds it can they keep whatever money is in it?” Made had said ok (he’d already checked with me and knew the only thing that really mattered was getting my phone, wallet and cards back).
My friend and I had a meeting with the young leader of the small village where my wallet had most likely fallen. The leader sent a text to the Head of the Island, but the Head of the Island was busy at the spinning-top game on the football field. The young leader reassured me they’d all do their best to find it, and even check everybody on the island the next morning if it hadn’t been ‘found’.
When I got home again, Made said, “Why don’t you use a GPS tracking thing to find it?”
Clunk.
Blimey, why hadn’t I had that brainiac idea! Just goes to show that stress still messes with my head.
I’d never used the findmyphone app before, so I ran to my ipad and googled how-to. Turns out it’s very simple and straight away it located exactly where my phone was at that very minute.
During all this time of searching a big storm had been brewing. The sky was ominously black. As I rode my bike out of our gate again, the wind was intense and I had to keep on the side of the road away from palm trees in case a coconut fell on my head. The road was busy – unusually – because all the men were on their bicycles rushing home from the field.
Findmyphone took me to a house right next door to the house where my friend and I had just met with the young leader. The man who lived in this house, had just arrived home from the football field and was standing outside. I don’t know him well, but I’ve heard he’s perhaps one of the less fragrant eggs on this island.
I kindly looked him in the eye and simply told him the truth. I showed him my ipad tracker. I asked him if he had found my wallet.
He said no.
He asked if I’d checked all the places I’d been to, and if I’d checked at home or the shops, which is stupid because there’s no shops open at the beach. He asked me to describe my wallet and what was inside it. I repeated my story with all the polite bla bla and told him, in any case, the gps said it was now there. He told me not to worry, that surely someone would return it soon.
I asked him again if he had it. Again he said no. He didn’t offer to ask anyone else at the house. Instead, he asked me if he could tell the people in the village that the finder could keep the money. Hmmmm. The smelly egg stank.
The storm arrived, and wind swirled everywhere. Long palm fronds fell in the field behind us, and the first drops of rain fell, and yet he stood calmly, slouched against a pole, his arms crossed and his chin raised just a little bit, in that slimy way dodgy dudes often do. And because of my ridiculously trusting nature – aka stupidity – his arrogant posture didn’t stop me from giving him the benefit of the doubt. I still felt unsure.
He smiled at me.
“I’ll go and speak with the people in the village after I’ve finished praying,” he said. It was time for the Maghrib prayer.
Just then Made arrived, peddling hard against the wind. He’d been off feeding some cats. In times of trouble, Made has a very calm and assertive manner, and it sometimes surprises me that local people really defer to him. He simply told the man (in the local sasak language that I don’t understand) to stop hiding the truth right now because the GPS, does, not, lie.
The egg shrugged himself off the post and walked into his house, and just like that he came straight back out holding my wallet.
I was so relieved, I didn’t think rationally or angrily.
I should have said, ‘Why did you lie to me, sir?’
I should have said, ‘Because you lied to me, I won’t give you any money, you rotten egg.’
But instead I looked at Made. It’s always important/safer to be culturally respectful. I asked him what an appropriate “reward” would be, and I gave the man a lot more than he deserved.
And without thinking, a strange humility came over me and I took both his hands in mine, I bowed a little and looked into his eyes. “Terima kasih banyak,” I said gently. Thank you, very much. I’m still pondering why I did that… was I being meek, or kind?
The man looked at Made. “Some kids picked it up and urged me to ask for the money.” Hmmm.
The drama was over. Made and I rode home dodging falling coconuts and got home just in time before the rain bucketed down and the storm knocked out the electricity.
How good is findmyphone! I was stoked.
But in the few days since then, I’ve been wondering about the goodness or otherwise of humanity, and thinking about the ethics of returning lost items.
In my wallet there is a local identity card with my photo. The man knows me (it’s a tiny island, just like a small country town where everybody knows which neighbours prefer their eggs sunny-side-up or which prefer them poached). He’d probably even know that Made and I have been helping some hungry elderly folk here, two of them widows that live less than 50 metres from his house.
Perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that the man on the football field who asked Made if the ‘finder’ of my wallet could keep the money in it, was indeed the man who had it.
Why didn’t he tell us he had it?
In some despondent moments, I’ve had thoughts like, ‘karma will get him’, but that’s not very magnanimous of me, and writing this blog has helped me think more kindly. And it could well be my karma that I dropped the wallet in front of a bad egg instead of all the other truly lovely people who live on this island. Perhaps it was my karma to learn another ‘expensive’ lesson.
I suspect he was going to hand it in later somehow, sans cash, probably anonymously. For whatever reason.
I must not assume. Perhaps the man really needs the money to buy food for his family. He owns bungalows, like we do, and hasn’t had any income at all for two and a half months. Perhaps he will give the money to someone who is hungry, or maybe he will share it with the villagers. I wonder if he’s disappointed that he didn’t get all of it.
It is ok to keep something you find, if you need it, yeah? It’s even ok to steal something, if you need it, right? We can be as moralistic as we like, but it is not good to assume or judge, or take things personally. We are all eggs that may smell at times given the right circumstances or environment. Or desperation.
For my own inner peace and so that I can sustain a hope in humankind, I must trust that he didn’t behave out of greed or discrimination. And perhaps even that everyone else, if they’d found my wallet, would’ve been honest.
I read about a study, in which tens of thousands of wallets were deliberately ‘dropped’ in cities all around the world. The results were really interesting. It was found that people were significantly more likely to return a wallet, if there was a bigger amount of money inside it. The article didn’t say if that was because finders of wallets believe they’re more likely to get a reward when there’s $200 inside rather than $2. Or, if it’s because the finders genuinely felt more concern for the owner’s loss, and returned it out of common decency. I wonder.
If this man who found my wallet had voluntarily returned it, I’d have offered him money as a reward. I imagine we both would’ve felt better about the whole situation, whether he accepted my offer or not.
I have added this little egg to my pile of dodgy dudes – he’s now DD4 – even though I recognise that most dodgy dudes have back-stories and reasons for being dodgy, rather than just having being laid as bad eggs in the coup. I forgive DD4’s dishonesty, but I will be wary of him in future.
The pile of dodgy dudes is actually rather large, sadly, even though I’ve only written about a few of them so far. Some days it gets me down that the world is so full of them, especially when I see the misery on the world news (much of it perpetrated by dodgy dudes). I like to hide away in this little paradise island and on many more days than not, I push cynicism aside and agree with Rutger Bregman – humankind is more good than not.
It helps to look at the Kindness Pandemic every now and then, to get a balance. That page reminds me that most people, deep down, are pretty decent. And most of us, if we find a wallet, would return it honestly.
humankind – be both
