60477 bar bard.

Our guide takes us to a bar in the evening; already from the street it sounds like a good time. We go in, I take the only unoccupied chair, which is at the back of the room. Smiling people are all around listening to a local minstrel bowing a one-string instrument and happily singing. We listen as the clever worder strums his instrument and improvises bons mots, causing much mirth, (I am later told) on a wide variety of topics, such as local gossip, as well as more serious subjects like politics. He makes the rounds, collecting the encouragement of small banknotes. He comes around to me and sings several pointed strophes, but I do not understand his tongue. What am I to do? I smile and clap along with the rest. I am later told that he sang this to me: ‘I would be happy if the foreigner gave me a dollar.’