Reflections

Although my post isn't about the film, I thought the following quote from today's Post was quite apt:

[Heading South] doesn't make the mistake that so many Westerners-in-World-3 make, where they concentrate so fully on the horror of the posh observers, they pass on the horror of the exploited. What happens is horrible, and perhaps its biggest horror is how helpful it is to Westerners. It's a metaphor for the ways we look but don't feel a whole lot about what happens in the world's gutters.

Almost a month on, I'm still processing all that I saw and felt in East Africa. I'm trying to reconcile my experiences with those of of the people I came into contact with. I always feel a deep sense of shame; shame that I am so afluent, shame that I am so impotent. I can't help but cringe when I see other muzungos interact with 'locals' in a condescending, patronising way and then I think - I must be like that too. For the most part, 'we' (Westerners) are 1) ridiculously afraid of being in Africa and 2) completely blind to most of what's going on around us.

It is so easy to come away and have selective memory. To remember the bad things and not the overwhelming generosity. Do you remember the guy that pulled you to the side at the border crossing and tried to scam you, or the one that came up to you quietly and warned you the first one was a scammer? Do you remember the man that grabbed your throat and tried to rob you, or the mob that stuck up for you and chased after him?

There are streetkids in every city I've been to in Africa, there are probably streetkids in most cities in the world, but with such huge numbers of orphans and enormous poverty it seems to be far more overwhelming in the places I've been to in Africa. Even though I've lived and worked with muzungus who care about children, the streetkids seem invisible to most. I think the problem is so overwhelming most people can't think about it. How can you justify having a 6 year old sleep on the streets and beg for food? How do you justify walking by a 6 year old kid that has no food or home? You say to yourself they'll sniff glue if I give them anything and keep walking.

One day I was in Nairobi walking down the street and a little boy came up to me and said (all this was in Swahili) how are you, where are you from, I'm hungry. I asked him how old he was (he said 9 but looked about 4 or 5), what his name was and where his parents were, and chatted to him for a bit as we walked down the street. The other people I'd been walking with hadn't seen him when he walked up to us. I bought the little boy some food and watched him walk off smiling with a bag almost as big as he was, thinking how futile it was. Someone would probably snatch it from him but even if he kept it, how long would it last? Then I remembered walking by a homeless man in Bristol and giving him some change, he thanked me saying "sometimes I think I don't exist anymore, people walk by me without seeing me every day." At least the little boy had been seen.

I know this post seems a bit all over the place, but it does have a message - please see the people around you are just that: people.

This homeless guy asked me for money the other day.
I was about to give it to him and then I thought he was going to use it on drugs or alcohol.
And then I thought, that's what I'm going to use it on.
Why am I judging this poor bastard.
People love to judge homeless guys.
Like if you give them money they're just going to waste it.
Well, he lives in a box, what do you want him to do?
Save it up and buy a wall unit?
Take a little run to the store for a throw rug and a CD rack?
He's homeless.
I walked behind this guy the other day.
A homeless guy asked him for money.
He looks right at the homeless guy and says why don't you go get a job you bum.
People always say that to homeless guys like it is so easy.
This homeless guy was wearing his underwear outside his pants.
Outside his pants.
I'm guessing his resume isn't all up to date.
I'm predicting some problems during the interview process.
I'm pretty sure even McDonalds has a "underwear goes inside the pants" policy.
Not that they enforce it really strictly, but technically I'm sure it is on the books.

-Lazyboy