Three Dutch students sent to Malta with nothing but an old iPod and a box of paper clips as part of an unorthodox business degree almost failed their course when the Gżira cowboy figure they had been sent to find was nowhere to be seen.
Joost Toorend said he and two other students from his course at the Your Legacy Academy in Amsterdam had spent two days walking around Sliema and Gżira in search of the landmark statue in front of the Good Thaimes restaurant. Their efforts were in vain, as the figure had been removed on police orders for not having a permit last May.
The iPod video instructing them to find the elusive cowboy.“We were given this iPod with videos explaining challenges we had to complete before going on to the next country and finally arriving back in Holland to graduate. We had to find this cowboy before going to Rome and couldn’t find it anywhere. We didn’t know what to do,” Mr Toorend said.
The wooden cowboy, which for about 12 years stood watch over the busy neighbourhood of Gżira Road, forms part of the bizarre furnishings of a German beer-bar-cum-Thai-restaurant.
However, the figure and restaurant became the subject of controversy when some 10 police officers and Tourism Authority officials went to the restaurant, ordering its owner to remove it immediately or face being fined.
“It’s crazy, this cowboy has been here for years. What kind of permit does one get for a large wooden cowboy? And why would this require the police,” restaurant owner Ferry Jehle said.
I’ve even been to court over a promotional chalk board
The story sparked outrage among the restaurant’s patrons as well as several readers, who felt the authorities should focus on large-scale building illegalities rather than a cowboy statue.
Mr Toorend said meanwhile that the group reached their goal in the nick of time, as they happened to be passing by the restaurant when they recognised the front door from the iPod video.
“We were lucky, I suppose. We could have easily not found this place and I don’t know if we would have passed our degree,” he said, digging into a plate of homemade spring rolls offered up free of charge by Mr Jehle.
Mr Toorend told The Sunday Times of Malta that the Master’s in business degree the group was pursuing was aimed at honing their creative business skills and enabling them to solve problems by thinking outside the box.
Their tutor confiscated their credit cards and mobile phones and sent them on a one-way flight to Malta. “We arrived in Malta with no cash and no map. We had this box of paperclips and have had to trade them for things of value,” he said, adding that the group had turned paperclips into a pen, bouquet of roses and eventually an old mobile phone, enabling them to make phone calls.
The group have had to hitchhike, starting from the airport, and sleep on sofas, hostel roofs and beaches, all while completing a set of challenges with a quasi-business theme.
Back at Good Thaimes, Mr Jehle sips a shot of Scandinavian vodka poured from a skull-shaped bottle.
The patchwork of football trophies, buffalo horns, bronze Buddhas and Bavarian scarves are a reminder of the restaurant’s many lives as a football nursery, Tex-Mex bar and now Thai-German eatery.
He says repeat police visits are now commonplace and he is starting to feel harassed.
“It’s nearly every other day. We have had furniture confiscated, and I’ve even been to court over a promotional chalk board given to me by beer suppliers,” he said.