The Misplaced Loot In Switzerland Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

We travel by car all the way from Casablanca through Spanish Morocco and Spain and France to Switzerland. It's the end of June at the extremity of the school year that my parents select our vacation time.

We enjoy, rather they enjoy the sights while my sister and I suffer from boredom in the backseat. I am sixteen she's 6. Before crossing from France into Edelweiss land (that's way before the movie was made)my father announces he needs to stash a sizeable

amount of Francs the intention being to open a Swiss bank account as we intend to emigrate from Morocco. Those were the times of the Independence of that Protectorate and transfer of money was verboten. The Saracens didn't want their silver to flee their

land. In any case my father decides to roll the big bills into super tight cylinders and inserts them one at a time into the hollow tube of our umbrellas. Of course once we cross the border he needs to retrieve them. No amount of violent shaking does the job until

smart structural architect engineer he is he goes to the edge of the road where he says for us all to watch where the cylinders of money will land. As we watch the green grassy field before our eyes my father swings very forcefully the umbrella and all the rolled

money comes flying out like from a machine gun. They all land, a dozen, in a straight line, a meter or so apart, over a hundred meter from where we all stand. We spend an hour looking amongst the tall grasses and find them all at the end.