Malta Tre

Our scene opens with the protagonist. You would think that’s me, you absolute fools. No, I am the antagonist—well, sort of. Riju is the real star you are looking for. He is both a genuinely wonderful human being and undisputedly the worst waiter to ever walk the earth.

You sit down, and out bounds this five-foot-two pocket-sized man sporting a massive smile, a tiny goatee, and an abundance of teeth. He asks for your order, but whatever he brings back will bear zero resemblance to it. Two nights ago, I ordered a Cab to go with my spaghetti bolognese, and he proudly delivered a glass of white wine. The look on his face wasn't just confused; it was as if he had never encountered the concept of squeezing grapes, letting them ferment, and pouring them into glassware. I went through the rudimentary process of explaining what wine actually is, watching a total blank slate settle over the face of my new best friend. After witnessing him consult a few confused wait staff, the right wine luckily arrived. Then came the food and yes, I ordered pasta before the salad. Something needed to be done about the gallon of whiskey I had recently consumed.

I ordered the Burrata salad, but somewhere in translation, he only caught the name of the cheese. What arrived next was a solitary, ice-cold slab of Burrata, a smear of pesto, and exactly one single pine nut. He beamed at me with a proud, vacant grin—the exact expression my youngest child made the first time he successfully used the toilet. All I could do was smile back. He drifted away, leaving me entirely alone with a freezing brick of dairy. It was beautiful. At that point, I couldn't take my eyes off him. I realized that whatever planet I was currently occupying, Riju was orbiting a completely different galaxy, and I desperately needed to see what he would do next.

At different points during the meal, I wanted more wine, then some bread, and I was even dreaming about dessert. But every time I looked for him, he was just standing in the corner, talking to another worker with that same giant, goofy grin on his face. By my very rough math, he had about eight tables to take care of. As far as I could tell, he only visited them when there was absolutely nobody else left for him to talk to in the kitchen. At one point, he finally walked right past my table. He smiled at me, but then it seemed like he suddenly switched into fast-forward mode. I had a whole list of things I wanted to ask for, but in the blink of an eye, he vanished into thin air. Even though I was in need, it was one of the absolute best moments of the entire night.

The bill came due, and I wanted to give him a tip and certainly not because he earned it, quite the opposite. My tip was more of a congratulatory one; he had survived this long doing less than nothing, so who was I to break the streak? He brought his little card reader over, and before I knew it, my $69.17 bill had already been charged. Of course, I said that I wanted to give him a tip. He said no, I said I wanted to, and he said it was no big deal—maybe I'd come back and tip next time. If you saw this guy, you would know he needed the money. I chased him down two feet from the kitchen and gave him cash. He resisted, and not in a small way; he said he could not possibly accept, and that it was his fault he did not get the tip. Well, at this point, I had fallen head over heels. I think just by sheer body mass, he accepted.

I came back the next day wanting to eat there, who wouldn't. I guess the night before they were open until 10:00, but tonight only until 9:30. They would not seat me even though I said I would take anything they had left over. I saw him, he saw me, and we both frantically waved at each other. I said something like, 'I am back, help me, I am hungry,' and he waved even harder, never breaking stride and I never saw him again. I didn't even take umbrage; I just thought, 'What a happy little fellow he is.' And there he went, who knows where, and off I went to the vending machines.

Tonight, ooooh tonight. He sees me and locks me in a massive hug. Bold move, considering I was currently running on a pure diet of stale peanuts and of course, whiskey. But he's irresistible, so we embraced. Then the boss drops a bomb: "I hear you have a problem with Riju. I'll be your waiter tonight." Total crickets. I panicked. Was I drunk? Did I actually say that out loud? After an agonizingly long silence, they both busted out laughing. I just looked down, suddenly deeply fascinated by my own shoes.

All I had ordered was the burrata salad, but managing it turned into a high-stakes engineering crisis. At one point, I desperately needed more bread. At another, I needed a brand-new chunk of cheese because my structural proportions were completely ruinedas the bread-to-cheese-to-salad ratio was an absolute disaster. Meanwhile, my little buddy Riju was entirely AWOL. Every time I ran out of supplies, I had to physically get up, track down a nice, plump little Irish waitress, and discreetly beg her for emergency rations and do so on the down low. Then, out of nowhere, Riju finally materializes, drifts past my table, and asks, 'Did you order the pasta?' 'No,' I reply, completely bewildered. He gives me a huge, brilliant smile, says, 'OK, the kitchen is closing,' and vanishes back into the ether.

The real payoff came at the end of the night when I caught him alone. We sat down and just talked. As it turns out, he has a wife and kids living in Nepal. For the past nine years, he has lived a solitary life here in Malta, working year-round at the resort and seeing his family for just four weeks out of the year. He lives on absolute bare essentials, sending the rest of his paycheck straight home. The logistics of his sacrifice are staggering, but what really hits you is his attitude. This is a guy who started working at nine years old with no education and nothing to his name. When he finally got a chance at schooling, he walked over an hour each way just to get to a classroom. It’s easy to be cynical and dismiss a story like that, but if you were there, you’d know. His absolute contentment and simple, honest demeanor leave no room for deception. I believed him completely.

I then started doing what people with privilege often do: lecturing him on the evils of money and how the world shouldn't work this way. He just let me talk. But when he spoke, he essentially told me that despite the distance, he and his family are genuinely content. They miss each other terribly, but this is their path, and they make the absolute best of it. It instantly made my grand philosophies feel incredibly small. I gave him a massive tip, emptied the rest of the cash from my wallet for the Irish girl who had been sweating out a brutal shift alongside him, and walked away with a lot to think about.

Perhaps this encounter was the real reason I came here. It's one thing to philosophize about gratitude, but it's a completely different matter to witness it embodied in another human being. It was an incredibly humbling reality check. Here I am, complaining about God knows what, while this man spends his life working himself to the bone to serve others, remaining happier than almost anyone I know. He completely redefines what it means to be content. If there is a higher power, this was a clear lesson in perspective. The challenge now is to pull myself out of my own head and turn this realization into actual momentum. I plan on doing exactly that—just as soon as the alcohol wears off, which will most likley take well over two weeks.