Last summer I went to Pichilemu beach for my holidays; I was staying there with some friends and every night we went to the beach to sing beautiful songs or to drink a beer, but one night something different happenned. We were on the shore around the bonfire singing and just when I raised my face, there was a man a few feet behind me who was watching us. As soon as I looked at him he started to walk toward us and began to talk to us.
After a while I looked at him and his appearance was stranger, he was bony, with yellow teeth and long and dirty hair. He was bearded, thin and tall and he seemed to be ill because his voice was calm. He was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and he just had a sleeping bag tied to his waist. Suddenly he asked me for a cigarette, but I refused to give it to him because I really wanted him to leave us quickly. But my friends invited him to stay with us around the bonfire and he sat next to me. At the beginning, I was nervous and scared because of his appearance, but after a while I felt more comfortable with the new guy.
The man never said his name; he just began to tell stories about his exciting and vertiginous life. He told us about his travel from Arica to Punta Arenas knowing new people, new places, new cultures and the Chilean history and how he had realized every trip without money. In that moment I realized that he lived as a hobo.
Everything that he said was listened to carefully by each member of my group. He was telling us how he managed to eat, sleep and have fun every day, and everything seemed so much easier for him without responsibilities, a job, duties, etc.Those stories were amusing and interesting, but also those stories were reflected in the deterioration of his body and life because he had neglected himself because of this trips.
After a while, I started to think about the similarities and differences of my life and his life and about the different ways to assume or live the life. My life is absolutely different to his life. We could have had similar characteristics but we were totally different.
We had a lot of things in common, the same age, and we enjoyed having fun with friends. We were talking a lot about topics that we were interested in and we liked the same football team and the most important thing was that we wanted to realize our dreams.
On the other hand, we had a lot of differences; we didn’t have the same ideals for life, for example, I wanted to finish my course , work a lot and after that travel to England to study again, while he didn’t care about anything, he didn’t study or work and nothing was important for him.
After a while I looked at him and his appearance was stranger, he was bony, with yellow teeth and long and dirty hair. He was bearded, thin and tall and he seemed to be ill because his voice was calm. He was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and he just had a sleeping bag tied to his waist. Suddenly he asked me for a cigarette, but I refused to give it to him because I really wanted him to leave us quickly. But my friends invited him to stay with us around the bonfire and he sat next to me. At the beginning, I was nervous and scared because of his appearance, but after a while I felt more comfortable with the new guy.
The man never said his name; he just began to tell stories about his exciting and vertiginous life. He told us about his travel from Arica to Punta Arenas knowing new people, new places, new cultures and the Chilean history and how he had realized every trip without money. In that moment I realized that he lived as a hobo.
Everything that he said was listened to carefully by each member of my group. He was telling us how he managed to eat, sleep and have fun every day, and everything seemed so much easier for him without responsibilities, a job, duties, etc.Those stories were amusing and interesting, but also those stories were reflected in the deterioration of his body and life because he had neglected himself because of this trips.
After a while, I started to think about the similarities and differences of my life and his life and about the different ways to assume or live the life. My life is absolutely different to his life. We could have had similar characteristics but we were totally different.
We had a lot of things in common, the same age, and we enjoyed having fun with friends. We were talking a lot about topics that we were interested in and we liked the same football team and the most important thing was that we wanted to realize our dreams.
On the other hand, we had a lot of differences; we didn’t have the same ideals for life, for example, I wanted to finish my course , work a lot and after that travel to England to study again, while he didn’t care about anything, he didn’t study or work and nothing was important for him.
By Paola Inostroza
Apart from our differences we were able to accept each other and respect different points of view. I don’t know why he was that way, maybe he hadn’t had parents who worried about him or he hadn’t had anything important through his life; It coul have been a lot of causes, but the most interest to me are the effects that this behaviour has, because I think that it mustn’t be easy to live as a hobo.
The main effect is that this men had lived without caring about anything during his whole life. He didn’t have family, neither obligations nor possessions; due to this, he was completely “free” and all this freedom caused that he had a lot of time to have fun with the new friends that he met every day. However, at the same time, he was alone, without love and without support. Sometimes his sense of freedom was related to a loss of control and this attitude had brought him many troubles with the police in several times.
Also, he didn’t have a place to sleep, and because of this, he has exposed himself to many dangers like crime, extreme weather, illness etc. Beside, he had neither help insurance nor income, so he depended directly on other’s people goodwill to satisfy all his needs such as food, drink, shelter etc. In several ocassions he has had to beg for money and he has asked for help to travel to another place. However, he didn’t care about the money and he was happy traveling and hitchhiking around the country, visiting different places and knowing a lot of different people and culture.
Certainly, he was alone and he just shared with people for a couple or hours because he is continually looking for something that he really didn’t know but he called it “Freedom”. By the time he had become drunk without thinking about anything else, he lived the present without prospect to the future.
In conclusion, that man made me realize that we can have different thoughts, different lifestyles and different ways to assume the life. But thinking about this man, beyond his smile there was reflected a solitary and hard life and the effects were evident. Maybe the next summer I’ll know somebody different who has a lot of more stories to tell but this person made me feel that I had chosen the best option and I am very happy to have decided to study and have a better future for me and my future family.
Apart from our differences we were able to accept each other and respect different points of view. I don’t know why he was that way, maybe he hadn’t had parents who worried about him or he hadn’t had anything important through his life; It coul have been a lot of causes, but the most interest to me are the effects that this behaviour has, because I think that it mustn’t be easy to live as a hobo.
The main effect is that this men had lived without caring about anything during his whole life. He didn’t have family, neither obligations nor possessions; due to this, he was completely “free” and all this freedom caused that he had a lot of time to have fun with the new friends that he met every day. However, at the same time, he was alone, without love and without support. Sometimes his sense of freedom was related to a loss of control and this attitude had brought him many troubles with the police in several times.
Also, he didn’t have a place to sleep, and because of this, he has exposed himself to many dangers like crime, extreme weather, illness etc. Beside, he had neither help insurance nor income, so he depended directly on other’s people goodwill to satisfy all his needs such as food, drink, shelter etc. In several ocassions he has had to beg for money and he has asked for help to travel to another place. However, he didn’t care about the money and he was happy traveling and hitchhiking around the country, visiting different places and knowing a lot of different people and culture.
Certainly, he was alone and he just shared with people for a couple or hours because he is continually looking for something that he really didn’t know but he called it “Freedom”. By the time he had become drunk without thinking about anything else, he lived the present without prospect to the future.
In conclusion, that man made me realize that we can have different thoughts, different lifestyles and different ways to assume the life. But thinking about this man, beyond his smile there was reflected a solitary and hard life and the effects were evident. Maybe the next summer I’ll know somebody different who has a lot of more stories to tell but this person made me feel that I had chosen the best option and I am very happy to have decided to study and have a better future for me and my future family.
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