Gone West

11 July 2014

It’s a red Subaru hatchback. An Impreza with about 218,000 miles. Probably the early 2000s model. It runs at about 3000 RPMs and hums when I get it to 70 mph in fifth gear but I don’t really need to go any faster than that. I usually leave it unocked with the windows down. The jury is still out whether that is naïve or not.

I’m alone in the car– unusual that I’m not on the bike if I’m traveling solo— winding along the rivers and through the mountains of Yellowstone National Park. The weekend was thrown together and I’m planning as I go– again a little out of character. I’m seizing the day, as they say.

In the far back I flung the canvas tarp under which I slept the night before. The sleeping bag, sleeping pad, stove, and cookware were all familiar and therefore comforting. The threatened rain had forced me to prepare the hatchback for a night’s sleep but it proved unnecessary. The cold kept the mosquitoes away.

The back seat had all my clothes strewn on the floor on one side and all my food shoved on the floor on the other side. Such was my organization. My empty backpack carcass was on top of the seat. The food was not dehydrated from Backpacker Gourmet. Ritz peanut butter crackers. Three cliff bars. Three poppy seed bagels. Hormel TV dinners: mashed potates with meatloaf and swedish meatballs in alfredo. I just needed calories. The two empty Coke cans demonstrated my desperation.

The passenger seat floor was littered with snack wrappers and discarded Yellowstone flyers that were supposed to tell me where to go and what to do. They occasionally flew every where as I drove with the windows down. The seat contained a mostly empty jar of Skippy extra crunchy peanut butter and accompanying greasy knife. My copy of Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov” was also present, defying logic.

Bear spray

The glove box housed my phone that was resolutely turned off as well as my wallet. A spare stethescope of the doctor hinted at my intellectual side amidst the incongruent mess. This sophistication was sharply contrasted with the half empty bottle of Levitra and two sample packets– one used. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about how I could put those to good use. I had pretty much finished the bag of Spitz Chili Lime sunflower seeds I found in there on my way in to the park.

I had on dirty pants which I had yet to take off since my arrival two days ago. My face was sunburned. I hadn’t shaved in a week. My sunglasses hid my eyes. Just as well. I don’t think anybody who knows me would have recognized me anyway. I love Montana. The wild west.

I’ll see you in clinic on Monday.

Paddling By Moonlight

20 February 2013

I would have done it on my own but Manuel decided to go with me, too. Probably better. It was night and although the moon was full the water was still inky black with the Amazon jungle forming a corridor on either side that was only slightly less black. We slid out in our dug-out canoe quietly, me in the bow and Manuel at the stern. I take pride in my paddling abilities but these Peruvians grew up on the water. Their wide leaf shaped paddles barely made a sound as they dipped in and out and left tiny droplets dancing in our wake.

We went down river searching but not for anything in particular. I had put aside any expectation that the wildlife in the jungle would parade in front of me on command. Everything here was too native to bend to the unreal expectations of tourists. I just wanted to slip into the sounds and the humidity of the wilderness. As my eyes adjusted my ears came alive and my hair stood on end. We waded further into the darkness and gradually the lights from the camp disappeared around the bend and we were submerged.

Giant fishing bats with each wing as big as each of my hands swooped over our heads, their presence felt more than seen in the absence of light. Fish splashed and frogs croaked. The paddles dipped in and out, in and out. Periodically Manuel would spotlight high in the trees or close along the river bank as his ears picked up something completely imperceptible to me. We chatted in Spanish, the darkness making the silence between our words comfortable.

Manuel is seventeen and had grown up in the Amazon. San Pedro has always been his home but he is ready to leave. He is the youngest in his family and they made fun of him in school because his dad was poor and all his clothes and possessions were old and ragged. He is small and looks young but he is strong. He graduated high school early and started working with the tour company in order to practice english– still very basic. He has witnessed the young adults of the surrounding communities migrating to the cities and wants to be a part of that. He has a cousin Shirli who lives in Lima and is studying nursing. He is going to live with her in a couple months. He has many dreams and much ambition.

We drifted under and through some small brush and emerged into a lagoon. Here the water was glass and the moon was starting to slowly rise above the trees. Manuel told about his father and how he taught Manuel from a very young age the names of all the animals and plants in the forest. He knew the habits and movements of the small deer, the rodents, the fish. He could identify the herbs used for poison or those that help with problems with manlihood. He laughed as I told him my experience with Rompe Calzon, a drink which, translated directly, means torn underwear and is supposed to increase strength and virility while helping ward off illness.

As the silence lengthened between our words we slowly began our journey back to the camp. We surfaced from the darkness, silence, and the solidarity of the jungle. Manuel and I hadn’t seen anything but I felt like we had found much while being alone in each other’s company. I slipped in to bed sweaty and sticky in the humidity but fresh from the baptism of the night.

Heroes

 It was one of those scenes that was so bad it was funny. The volunteer had walked up the stairs, checking on the bedridden kids to see if they had any empty dishes to be taken down to wash. He could see in to the boys’ room from the top of the stairs. The kid was shoving food down his casts. The casts that had been on his legs for 8 weeks, a wooden pole between his ankles to keep them spread, a cloth-something fashioned around his waist that made a loin cloth look modest. The volunteer just stood there for a second, long enough for that omnipresent conscience to tap on the shoulder of the kid and make him look up in the middle of his mischief. Caught in the act.

One would expect him to look sheepish. And he did. Sort of. But really he just smiled this wolfish grin– the grin that had inspired another volunteer to teach him how to say “I want to suck your blood” in English– and he let out a shotgun cackle that said he was not trying to hide anything. After a couple weeks at the Hogar, nothing surprised the volunteer. Food stored in a cast for a couple days because a kid did not want to eat? Sounds about right. He walked up to Bresni, because that was the kid’s name, and used his finger to fish out all the old food. He dumped his treasure on the bed next to Bresni and picked up the Ben10 action figure that was there. Bresni looked over his glasses– perched on the end of his nose because when he shoved them up on his head he got in trouble– and his too-big-smile revealed gaps between every tooth and a glint in his eyes that said his skeletal little body enjoyed being up to no good. And then he looked at the action figure.

Bresni loves talking about superheroes, especially Ben10, though Spiderman is definitely up there, too. He would sit in his bed– because he could not move with his casts– and tell anyone who would listen about who would win in a fight, who had the best super power, which villain had the best chance of winning. He had his action figures collected above hime beneath the bunk bed or tucked under his pillow. And now he looked at the volunteer holding his hero, a mixture of excitement and fear visible. Punishment or play time?

The volunteer studied the toy. It did not really appeal to him. He had watched some teenage mutant ninja turtles when he was younger (his favorite was Raphael, the red one with the psi’s) but had never really been in to comic books or superheroes. He moved some arms up and down and twisted the body. Then he looked at Bresni and opened the door that the kid was desperately hoping he would. The volunteer did not really speak Spanish but he knew enough to know when to nod or the few words that were necessary to keep Bresni telling story after story, letting his imagination run wild, letting him escape the cast and the room and the home that held him away from his mom and other friends and a normal life. The volunteer sat there and forgot about the dishes or the other “good” volunteers dutifully washing plates and keeping order in the dining room. He became the side-kick, the villain, the civilian onlooker, the incompetent police– whatever he needed to be. And he was the most important person in Bresni’s life outside his mom.

The volunteer didn’t get it, but he played along. He felt silly and was glad no one was watching, but he stayed. He thought about the other role models in this kid’s life and wondered if they weren’t the ones he should be emulating, looking up to. He wondered if hard work was better than escaping in to fantasy land. But he stayed. And in staying he helped create a story.

He helped a kid be inspired by an idea which the cynicism of any adult tears apart. He grew Bresni’s imagination, expanded his world, made him excited about the battle of good and evil. Ben10 and Spiderman were more than action figures. They were ideas the kid could believe in, ideas that made it easier for the kid to believe in other people and other ideas in this world that are a little more difficult. This young adult became more than a volunteer– he was a superhero, too. Idealistic? Yes. Corny? Of course. Epic? You better believe it. 

After lunch the older boys gathered in the front room. They were going to the movies. Boys’ day out. They took the bus and got to wear their fancy jeans and sunglasses and slicked hair, hanging on the ceiling rail or leaning against the back of a seat like they were big time. Wheel chairs, crutches, limps, scars– didn’t matter. They chatted with the cute girl volunteers with them and flashed smiles and laughed because, well, they were with cute girls, and the cute girls weren’t their chaperones this time. They were dates. Maybe. Sort of. Ok, not really. But they could have been. Tickets, popcorn, soda, walking in a little late to a dark theater already loud with action. Having to be carried to a chair didn’t even matter. They were seeing Robocop.

The movie was predictable: lots of violence, explosions, and scripted drama. The cute girls were unimpressed. But the boys– popcorn was on the floor and wheelchairs were flying up and down the hallway and crutches were running to the bathroom then running back to finish re-telling a scene and then running back to the bathroom because they really needed to go.Can you really live with only lungs, heart, and a head? Can you really make robot arms and legs? Remember when he jumped like THAT? Dude, when he punched? I would totally want that to happen to me. I want a robot body. I want to be able to do that stuff. Wouldn’t you?

The question was directed at the volunteers. They looked down to the excited faces looking up at them. Unsure, they responded uh, no, not really. Too truthful for their own good. The boys, though, had barely stopped to listen. They were back reinacting, reliving, overcoming. They had found a new hero. It did not matter that it was completely unrealistic. That the movie was poorly written. That it lauded violence. That the cute adults didn’t buy it. They were in another life where they were bigger than life. They can be the engineers that invented this stuff. They can be ok with the amputation that they should have received four years ago if they could get a leg like that. They can help stand up for what they believe in. They can.

 

The former-volunteer-now-medical-student sat in a half full movie theater. This was not what he was expecting. A movie completely about comic books, specifically Batman? He had never read a comic book. He had no particular interest in Batman. He felt foolish, a little conned, guilty for being too ready to believe in a feel good story. He was getting bored and had to resist the urge to pull out his phone. Fortunately, it was benefiting the Children’s Hospital Behavioral Health Unit, which provides immediate care for children in crisis age 5-18. That was good.

Some of the ideas ended up resonating, though, and they stuck with him after the movie. Batman lived in the shadows and the dark but still fought for good. Bruce Wayne watched his whole family die in front of him and let that change him for the better, not the worse. Things that are silly and embarrassing for adults mean the world to kids. Ideas can be a rallying cry for communities that are suffering, even if the idea is silly. Comic books allow kids to tackle issues of self by seeing themselves in comic characters– it is always easier to talk about someone else, even if the subject really is oneself.

Again, he felt silly. This time it was for letting social convention persuade him that the evening had been a waste of time. Why is it silly to believe in superheroes? Why is it silly to want someone to believe in me? Who am I inspiring? Who am I letting inspire me? He walked in to his house and his roommate called at him from the couch, who won? The kid or cancer? Ha. It was a question laced with other meanings. That wasn’t what it was really about. That’s what I expected, but it wasn’t it. I am glad I was wrong.

 

A special thanks to all my heroes and to those who help us become or believe in heroes every day. To Robyn Rosenberger who founded TinySuperHeroes to make capes to empower kids to overcome extraordinary odds. For my twin brother Scott’s neurobiology lab and making the idea of Robocop possible– at least recovering full use of lost limbs. For We Are Batman, a movie that embraces the inner nerd and idealist and encourages us all to be great. For crisis centers for children and other places that address the mental health of our most precious resource. For comic books and graphic novels like Batman and Epileptic that help us understand ourselves and others better. And for funny people that don’t care what other people think. Thank you.

 

 

Saying good-bye shouldn’t be easy

I do not really remember specific moments in my life. My memory does not work in flashbacks where I can picture vivid scenes from months ago. That is probably why I am an awful story teller in person. Nothing sounds as cool when I talk about it as I know it was when it happened. I do not know why when I write it all of a sudden sounds better. I guess I am not allowed to do both. So when my friends and fellow volunteers asked me before I left what are the moments I would remember forever– and when my family asks what are the times you think about most– I do not really have an answer. Everything is a blur. I just know that I am sad and empty even though I know I am surrounded by the love of friends and family.

Coming home from Peru will be– has been– a challenge. Everything feels so far away. There is an unreal fog that makes it seem like a dream. I remember feeling this way the first time when I came home from my study abroad experience in Puebla, Mexico. I was a mess. I cried the entire next morning. It felt like it never happened. Nobody could understand what I just experienced. Nobody knew the right questions to ask. Nobody knew the right things to say. Nobody knew the inside jokes I had made or the best friends I could not let go of or the family that had adopted me with a bigger heart than I could ever explain. The same thing happened when I left Malawi, Africa. My home, my community, my friends, my familiar locations and activites and sounds and smells, all were gone in the blink of a plane ride. Poof.

And it’s not always saying good bye to homes abroad and coming back to the States. Leaving my community in St. Louis to move to Blantyre was the same. Leaving New Orleans to move to Peru was equally difficult. I did not even want to leave high school to go twenty minutes down the road to college (I am glad I did not listen to that version of Gregg).

Am I complaining? Am I regretting? Am I wishing things could be different? No. And yes. These experiences have all made me who I am and I treasure each one. I would love to go back and visit all of the best moments of my life. But if I had stayed in any of them I would be completely different today. I am who I am because I keep saying good-bye, I keeping looking for something new, I keep discovering beauty and letting it change me.

When I was in Honduras my senior year of college I accidentally deleted all of my photos two days before the end of the trip. I was devasted. My collection of pictures and videos were meant to immortalize an immersion experience that included playing soccer with an entire town until I could not walk, a spontaneous hamburger party thrown for us, eating raw sugar cane for the first time, talking with the elderly in a nursing home, and meeting a priest who I initially mistook as a homeless drunk but who inspired me with the way he understood his community. Without the pictures, I thought, I would lose this forever.

But that was silly. They were just pictures. I never look at 90% of the pictures I have taken throughout my life. There was no reason to place such importance on them. At that point I was forced to think about the experiences in my life differently. I thought about all the communities I had been a part of. I thought of the all the friends I had made. I thought of all the people I had met. I thought of all the places I had visited. I thought of the love I had experienced, the wonder, the rush, the exhaustion, the beauty, the pain, the sadness. As much as I wanted to, I knew I could never have those back. People move on. Places change. But I also realized that I would never entirely lose them, either.

Now I do not really worry about pictures. Sometimes that makes me sad since pictures can be beautiful, but even when I do take pictures I am usually not in them. For me, worrying about pictures takes me away from the present, and I would rather be totally, completely, and unmistakably present. What I worry about is letting life change me. I still think about people and places and love holding those images in my head. But I prefer to think of trips in terms of how I am different when I come home: availability, joy, appreciation of the strength of mothers, sunrises and sunsets, living every moment, wonder at the mystery of life, solidarity, and setting priorities. These are living, dynamic parts of me that serve as reminders every day of the wonderful journey that has been my life. I do not have pictures. I have a changed person.

With that I finally come to the crux of this post: unconventional beauty. I borrow this phrase from an amazing book and movie called “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” Unconventional beauty is the kind that makes you stop and notice. It is the kind that is provocative: it moves people. Unconventional beauty does not usually make sense– which is what makes it special. Unconventional beauty is not the tanned super model or the perfectly manicured lawn or the delicious food. It is giant piles of dirt that are the foothills of the Andes and which surround me in Chaclacayo. It is the sigh of relief after helping a kid get his pants down just in time in the bathroom. It is the two kids cuddled together in bed because they are afraid. It is volunteers who can’t seem to do anything right but do everything wrong with great love. It is a quiet grumpy doctor refuses to show the sense of humor that we all know is there. It is everyone being sweaty and smelly and groggy together after a two hour bus ride. On the surface none of these things is the idyllic picture of beauty but I think we can agree that looking deeper reveals something that can move mountains. That is what I am taking home from Peru.

Thus, I will refrain from going on and on about the cool people I miss, the amazing things I did, the spectacular places I saw, the funny inside jokes and things that make me so inexplicably exasperated that are my Peru. I would love basking in those memories, but you wouldn’t understand, and then I would feel sadder, and then we would both feel bad. Instead, I invite you to look for and delight in the unconventional beauty around you. In that way you can truly share my experience in its purest form and we will all be a lot happier.

Since I have been home I keep thinking about how much it hurts to say good bye. This is by no means the first time I have had to do this and it never gets easier. But my dad says that is a good thing. It means I was really invested. I was really there. It should hurt. God, it does. As long as I keep finding unconventional beauty in life, though, I know Peru and Hogar San Francisco de Asis will never leave me.

Commentary on “Belén”

Again I know these are not new and ground breaking ideas for society. It is a struggle that many young adults pass through, I am sure, especially during college. The personal and intimiate understanding, though, is a coming of age that no reading or lecture had been able to provide me. Thus, it is profound for me, possibly me alone. 🙂

 

As I have said before social justice and human rights have held a particular interest in my life towards the end of college and immediately afterward. Works by Shane Claiborne, the novel Glass Castle, and the documentary “The Human Experience”– though individually not satisfyingly complete– have inspired within me a desire to find solidarity with the poor and oppressed and appreciate the various expressions of life and decisions that people make. Experiences at the Karen House in St. Louis, the Rebuild Center in New Olreans, and various locations abroad have matured this desire and what it looks like practically in my life. My anthropology teachers would be proud of my attempts at immersion, participant observation, intimate reflections, humility in conclusions, and an insatiable thirst for more.

I am a white middle-upper class male. I grew up in the suburbs with a very comfortable childhood, loyal friends, loving and attentive family, and near perfect health. I thank my parents intensely for that. Without it I would not be who I am today. That being said, I believe it has also contributed to a passionate disquiet and uncomfortableness in my heart as I come to know more and more people– and their life experiences– through medicine and travel and happenstance. I realize that I have never really known what unites millions of people in this world: pain, suffering, hunger, loneliness, and a paradoxical joy that exists inspite of and because of all this.
I will immediately ammend part of that last sentence. I have suffered a broken heart. I have felt completely lost in life even among friends. I have felt the acute absence of something essential in my life that left me weak and scared. And I have certainly witnessed pure joy. These experiences are valid and real. In my heart I know that and in my mind I can find the logic. But when I talk with others, even when I brood on it myself, it does not seem equal to growing up in a household with a single parent in a neighborhood where homicides are more common than birthday parties. It is not the same as a parent with only enough money to buy either a blanket in winter or food but not both. It is not comparable to an entire society effectively telling a mentally ill homeless person that he or she is worth nothing and forgetting/denying his or her very existence. The principles are the same but I have difficulty reconciling the depth.

That is why I seek out the battered women and discriminated immigrants. Why I have spent a night in a sleeping bag on the streets of St. Louis in January. Why sometimes I got offended when people offered me impossible hospitality, frustrating my attempts (unsuccessful) to experience (pretend) real hunger or filth while traveling abroad. I feel set apart, like I am missing something– which is counter-intuitive since I have these feelings in part because I have been given so much. I could rationalize it by saying that I have worked hard to achieve my status, that I have earned it. True in part, but my achievements were also facilitated in part by my white male heterosexual privilege. This privilege has frustrated me but I am coming to an understaing that it is part of who I am and as such I cannot– I should not– run away from it.

I share all this to try and give context to a romantic idea of mine of living in poverty, seeking out the thick of the fight, moving to slums abroad or the inner city domestically, desperately grasping for solidarity with the millions of people who I want to be a part of and not separated from. It is not a desire to be the “white savior.” I have no ideas of grandeur, generosity, or benevolence– it is not to serve or work or bless. It is to be with. And to learn. There is beauty and joy and fulfillment possible in pain and suffering and struggle that I want to know. This excessively educated kid has more to learn about life than he has to share right now.

The problem is, being oppressed is not romantic. These people (I am unable to write in the inclusive “we”) die early from stress or treatable disease. They are illiterate and unhealthy. Every day they are confronted by inescapable choices between survival or denying reality. Their clothes are old and tattered and dirty. Their bodies are sleep deprived and malnourished, skeletal or sickly obese. There is no money for Christmas or birthday presents. There is no money to travel even to the next town. This is not “simple living”. This is not a minimalist approach to life born from the phrase “the best things in life are not things”. This is not a choice. It is exhausting, scary, lonely, painful, and hopeless.

Children are indomitable and their smiles infectious– until they are shot in the crossfire of gang violence or forced to cook and care for their younger siblings while their abusive father drinks all the money away and their mother has to work four jobs without any benefits. Parents can be heroes and protect and guide their children– until they get evicted and the state takes away their custody. The crazy endearing man seen in the soup kitchen every day who tells war stories or stories from his own head is happy even in his destitution– until he is found dead in the street from cold exposure, hepatitis, or HIV. Rural mountian families are forced to live day to day but do it beautifully– until guerrilla terrorists give them ultimatums and burn down their houses and crops. This is real. It is graphic. It hurts. It makes me cry. It makes me furious. It makes me want to fix everything. It makes me hopeless. It has made me lose my innocence. It makes me question everything. Joy can and does exist, even in oppression, but it is miraculous.

I no longer consider the world with the same romantic eyes I once had or the same romantic ideas. I am hardened but not permanently. I am cynical but still look for hope. Practical but am clutching to my old idealism. If I am honest with myself, I have to say that I am not sure that I can really do it: solidarity with the poor and oppressed. I am not sure I can really commit to that. A few months, a few years here and there, maybe. But I do not know if I want to willingly send my child to a school where I know the education is terrible. I am not sure I want my wife to live with me in a violent neighborhood where every time she walks out the door I wonder if I will see her again. I am not sure if I can stand being surrounded by filth and noise for decades, leaving me worn out without any peace. I am not sure if I can put aside the exotic and delicious food I so enjoy or clothes that may not be fancy but actually fit well. My life has been carefully crafted until this point and though I have lived simply I have also lived comfortably. I have departed from that comfort frequently but always with the knowledge that I would be returning.

What if I never returned? What if I departed for good? Not that I leave my friends and family behind but rather that I really and truly enter in to solidarity. That scares me. That idea is no longer romatic. That is terrifying. It is not just one jump. It is a constant decision made every day. I never thought I would say it, but it might be too hard.  

Belén

They crossed midfield in the boat. The goal posts rose out of the water on either end. They moved from the soccer court down the flooded boulevard with smoke sputtering from the engine attached to the back of the dug out boat. The propellor blade cutting the water at the end of a long pole would have led the gaze up to the brightly colored steps behind that the most recent mayor had built as the entrance to the city– had they been looking that direction. But they were not. They were looking forward, uncertain what to expect. The shifting in the boat suggested more than physical uncomfortableness even though this would not be the first time they had seen images like this. It would, however, be the first time they had experienced it together.

It was a city they were entering. Truly. The main thorough-fare was wide with smaller pathways branching off, some culminating in dead ends while others led back and back further than was imaginable. Concrete telephone poles reached solitarily skyward, fettered by electrical lines and metal wires that drooped and sagged in apparent weariness. There was a bar. Boats collected out front crowded with noise, metal fencing marking where fun should start and stop. The noise makers did not heed it. The entrance ramp to the lumber yard rose out of the water to reveal quiet piles of giant tree trunks stacked in long pyramids, the cemetary of the jungle, almost accusatory in its silence on Saturday afternoon. It was a city, only flooded with water.

The houses were all wood. The few with paint remaining were flaked and faded, departed from a former brillance. Most rested on rafts. Thick trunks would form a perimeter with planks between to secure the rocking foundation. The homes were anchored in place with lines tethered to poles. A handful could be seen rising above the others as they were propped up on stilts. Out front were the latrines: free standing boxes with cracks in the walls and the hole in the bottom opening directly in to the water. Faces peered over the window frames, lounged in doorways, looked up from their boats. None were terribly interested. They were either busy transporting fruit or pigs or the new sheets of tin that the mayor was handing out to buy votes for the upcoming election. Or they were simply catching up on gossip for the week and relaxing.

The boat chugged past all this. A teenage girl was seated at the bow in a neon yellow sleeveless shirt revealing arms not strangers to work, her hair gathered on top of her head. Another teenager, this one a boy, sat at the stern, swinging the long-oared propellor with a non-chalance born from familiarity. This was their home and they were escorting the four visitors, three armed with cameras, two with wide brimmed hats, all with well-made shirts whose buttons and vents were designed to keep cool. One of the visitors was the official tour guide: a man born in the jungle who moved to this city when he was twelve, put himself through school, learned English, and now takes tourists to experience that which part of him wishes he had never left. His shirt and hat exhibited the professional logo that sets him apart even in this barrio where he spent his first five years of city life surviving. The other three passengers consisted of two parents and their son.

The young man shared a seat with his mom. He kept half-raising his camera then letting it fall again. The lens would retract in sleep mode as he struggled with which pictures he wanted to take. It was like he was stealing. He raised the camera quickly, took the picutre, and dropped it again below the level of the boat. Sometimes he would not even look at his target thinking naively that maybe they would not know he was singling them out, that he was saying “You are the spectacle. You are the other that is so different I have to go on a boat ride to see you in your natural habitat.” The camera is like pointing an accusatory finger. It is a writhing snake that the man is unsure whether he should grip harder and not let go or throw as far away as possible. He wanted to be here. He liked being here, seeing life so different from his own. It was the camera that made him uneasy, that corrupted the experience from one of sharing to something else. But he wanted to remember. He wanted to revisit this place again, to know life different than his, to see pain, to see joy, to see stories etched in the faces of the old or told in the laughs of the young.

“Fuck it. I am a tourist. Losing the camera is not going to make me fit in. No matter what I do I am going to be looked at. I am just as much a spectacle. Whatever.” With that thought he started raising the camera more. He was bolder, being diliberate about pointing it at people rather than empty buildings or landscapes. He was almost defiant. It was not the camera that made him different. Its presence or absence would not really change what people thought of him. He was tall. He was white. He was well dressed. He was well nourished. He was clean. No, the problem was not the camera. He accepted it and stole the memories and images that would hopefully leave him changed.

A house collapsed in the water under an unknown weight. Kids laughed and showed off with back flips in chest high water. A solitary child on a raft was going somewhere. Neighbors talked on their floating front proch. A flooded cesspool of a city. Hard eyes– only eyes– stared from the shadows.

They docked and tip-toed across the tresses of drift wood, avoiding the nails and false steps, until they made it back to the painted mayor’s steps. The fee was paid in cash furtively. How does one decide a price for such a trip? What is being valued? But the price was agreed on beforehand and settled accordingly. The cameras were put out of sight and the three said good-bye to the guide and ventured out to walk home.

It was supposed to be an opportunity to see the city: walk the streets and get a feel for the people, the culture, the way of life. They went in search of parks, landmarks, markets, crafts, or whatever else they could find. What they found, though, was not what they were looking for. The park at the shoreline was full of graffiti, empty fountains, and chipped paint. A stretch near restaurants and shops was well kept but was quickly passed. The river was choked with old buckets, plastic bags, glass bottles, driftwood, and river weeds native to the area. The Plaza de Armas, the large central square at the heart of every Latin American city, was surrounded by circling rickshaws who filled the air with a deafening buzz that superceded conversation and dotted the sky with puffs of exhaust, leaving one’s nose full of visible soot and dust at the end of the day. The market they stumbled across was not the central market full of exotic colors, tastes, and smells. It was the wholesale market with mountains of yuca root, plantains, papaya, soft drinks, and palm heart. Large delivery trucks kept interrupting the path and they had to jump into traffic and then bck on the side walk, unable to peruse leisurely, worried about the motorcycles. The rickshaws were still passing and they had to shout to be heard. There were always rickshaws. Everywhere. Swarming the streets sometimes eight deep across the four lanes of traffic, crisscrossing back and forth. There was no escape from their sight, their sound, their smoke. The buildings they passed were empty storefronts or harsh brick that testified to the bust after the boom of oil in the 1980s. Even though the sun was going down the city was still hot and muggy, threatening rain as was typical for the season. The three had been walking for nearly 45 minutes, their shirts stuck to their skin, their feet dirty and dusty, their ears sick of the relentless noise. The son, at least, wanted to be back at the hotel already. It was not the walk he had envisioned.

At last they made it back. The young man collapsed on the bed in his private room and turned on the air conditioning. He took off his shoes and shirt and let the cool air wash over him. He thought about enjoying a pisco sour in the restaurant next door. He could escape to the back where he would be insulated from the noise. The elevated lookout enclosed in glass walls would enable him to skip the trash near the shore and take in a view of the river unsoiled. It also had air conditioning.

Ultimately that dream was not pursued. An early night was preferred after the long day. The young man was surprised at how much he needed this retreat space. The quiet room. Cool. All to himself. Normally poverty did not bother him. He reveled in the markets, the diverse expressions of life, even the dust and dirt and broken houses. But there was something here that he needed to get away from. He was not sure from what, or why. He just knew he was glad that he was in here and not out there. The thought made him uncomfortable and sad because it was true.  

 

Snow White

 I just wanted her to wash her hands. The look in her eye, though, said that was going to be more difficult than it should. Her eleven year old teenage face was set and it was squarely against what I wanted, whatever that was she did not even need to know. She has hemiplegic cerebral palsy which has left her right side weakened and contracted, her arm and leg bent like a T-rex. As a result, her half drooping face showed even more grissly determination than is typical of a rebellious teenager. Blanca. My Blanca Nieves. My Snow White. She is difficult.

I grabbed her ear lobe to turn her head so she would actually look at me. She was playing dumb and pretending not to listen– a game at which she is very good, especially with new people, given her history of brain damage; she is decidedly not dumb, though. I did not pull, just resisted her from turning away more. Of course that made her struggle and she let out a slow, pathetic whine of pain that was of her own doing.

“That’s hurting her. Don’t do that,” said a soft voice over my shoulder. It was the Doctor. I did not know he even had a soft voice. I immediately let go and felt ashamed, then indigation. Dozens of contradictions lept spontaneously to mind in my defense. Chastized by the man who yells incessantly at the kids during meals? Who shoves spoons in their mouths? Who ruthlessly makes them eat all of their food? Who will not let them act like kids and make even a little bit of noise? He is really disapproving of this?

But then I thought about it, and realized that he never touches the kids violently. Maybe he will grab an arm or a shoulder. Maybe he will take them to the kitchen so Irma can really persuade them to eat. However, as impatient and ill tempered as the volume and tone of his voice may suggest, he never uses physical force or intimidation.

I reach for Blanca’s hands and gently pull them into the basin to wash and dry them for her. Then I lift the spoon of blended food to her mouth and fed her. She is eleven years old. She has proven before she can wash and feed herself independently. I feel like I am giving in to the whims of this teenage girl, proving in her mind that if she resists and whines enough she will get what she wants. I murmur encouraging words and ask her why she does not want to do it on her own and I do my best to wiggle past her defenses and find the girl inside, something I do even when pulling ear lobes. But I was embarrassed and ashamed that I had used something so domineering as physical force to make her do something she did not want to do. I felt sick inside.

Am I being dramatic? Maybe. Probably. But human rights and social justice are issues that have really inspired me in the years since I graduated college. Playing soccer with the immigrant poor in St. Louis. Serving breakfast for battered women. Eating lunch and listening to the stories of the homeless in New Orleans. Witnessing the courage and strength of single African mothers. Feeling the unrest of the oppressed in Latin America. US race issues made alive in “The Butler” and “12 Years a Slave”. The perpetual cycle of gang violence and the desperation of illegal immigration portrayed in “Sin Nombre.” Children denied a childhood in “City of God”. Broken families trying desperately to love and survive in “Entre Nos” and “the Pursuit of Happyness”. Rwanda. Syria. Pinochet. Shining Path. Desaparecidos. American Indians. Aboriginals. Apartheid. Concentration camps. Crusades and jihads. Each makes my heart break. Each makes me think about the abuse of power and what horrors humans are capable of even when we are convinced we are performing a service for the greater good.

In my situation, these ruminations beg the question: how do I control or discipline the kids without corrupting myself? This gnaws at me. Every time I think I have finally found the secret to persuading a child to listen, to hacerme caso, something happens to render my plan useless. The bargaining chip or threat falls limply and unheeded. Part of it is because each kid is different; then, when I apply a strategy successful with one kid to another kid, and it does not work, I take it to the next level until it is more barbaric than I had ever intended and I wonder how I let myself behave that way. I do not enjoy power; the progression of force is born from frustration and impatience and an arrogance that I know what is best. I think it is scarier because of the “good intentions.” It is more easily justifiable.

I lead Blanca Nieves upstairs to brush her teeth. Again I explain softly why this must happen and I promise to do it gently and ask her to trust me. Her multiple caries and vitamin C deficient gums cause her to pull my hand away despite my reassurances, not hard, but enough to force me to pin her arms down and threaten to pinch her nose shut if she does not open her mouth. I do not feel good about it. She is severely malnourished and I know proper nutrition and hygiene are just as important as her anti-epileptic medicine but that does not temper my disgust.

Who am I to decide what is best? Even armed with dozens of reasons the choice is not mine to make. Am I abusing power? Is this how discrimination and oppression starts? Again, probably over-dramatic, but I am an idealistic young adult and prone to such things. In a home of forty kids, discipline is a necessity. Children quickly learn whose threats are empty, who is easily manipulated, what they can get away with, and how to get what they want. But learning to take responsibility for actions is important. Understanding that certain behaviors have consequences is important. Learning how to work with– while not blindly following– authority is important. A complete laissez-faire approach is not appropriate, but neither is a dictatorship.

After brushing her teeth, I let Blanca Nieves sit on the pot for twenty minutes, a supposed emergency, during which time she does absolutely nothing. I then try to give her a lecture on the boy who cried wolf. It is lost in translation. She just stares at me from below, her stunted eleven year old body looks like a seven year old. I am doing nothing but blowing hot air and cannot keep from laughing at myself as I realize this. Blanca Nieves smiles, too, more endearing for its crookedness. As I look at her my chest fills with that dull ache of love and I ask the nurse if I can take her on a walk. This treat is completely undeserved, but that is ok. I open the front door and Blanca literallly dashes out as fast as she can. She is smiling. She is not running away, just enjoying her freedom. I follow her half-skip/half-hop at a slow jog until she turns to see if maybe she really did escape. At that point I crouch down and spread my arms and growl, chasing her down the street, hearing her squeal and giggle as she tries to avoid my giant gringo hug.

What I have settled on, I suppose, is that I have to follow my own conscience. There is no infallible rule book for this. I admit this is not a uniquely profound thought. It has been echoed and championed for centuries. But I do think it requires a personal journey to achieve an adequate depth of understanding. I know I will continue to do things that I am proud of and also things I am ashamed of. But what I want, what I hope to strive for, is that at the end of the day I will feel peace and compassion, that I will have the strength and courage to continuously question if what I am doing is just, and that I will have the humility to listen and change when necessary. I desperately hope so.

 

***I would like to remind people that though these stories are born from real events they are not intended to depict real life exactly and are often the compilation of many experiences. I have loved working with Dr. Tony and am amazed at his integrity; he is the same man whether he is fawned at by volunteers, being inspected by the government, being visited by potential donors, being frustrated by the kids, or being inspired by God. Please consider that these are my opinions and mine alone portrayed in a particularly emotional and reactionary moment. Every story has multiple perspectives. Thank you.

If the world lived as children

The child’s tears did nothing

to soften my heart.

For I knew, with a well placed tickle,

an enveloping hug,

a gentle kiss,

the faucet would stop and in its place

a smile, a laugh, a forgotten pain.

And so it was– a world restored

as quickly as it had fallen.

 

The boy approached with eyes downcast.

The girl paradoxically ashamed too.

Both feeling the humility necessary

to give and receive forgiveness.

The scene is sacred somehow,

though the grievance was petty.

Admittedly severe for them. Then.

 

The smiles and laughs come easily

as the children fly through the house

lifted by wonder and hope

not yet fettered by worry, pain, fear.

Even the plaster and nails and invisible chains

can’t contain the joy

that is profound in its innocence.

 

On the floor they came from above,

shouts and jeers that jabbed and sheared

deeper and sharper with malice

that seemed out of place

in the young eyes looking down.

Unimaginable, without pity, ruthless

that frighten us such

that we deny the fear and brutality,

each within us as well. The bullied and the bully.

 

The angelic faces made more peaceful in sleep

by the unmatched energy and excitement

from before. They turn on

and off with little left done half-way.

 

The fight in her eyes was for the fight.

No reason for so nothing could be used against.

The testing of strength and will repeated

when needed just to show authority

what it could and could not do.

It was courage and bravery and stubborness and defiance

that shown forth from behind the fortified walls,

frustrating when one might as well be amused.

 

My world is full of little gifts

that amaze me and make me smile,

for it is a world in which

I am not in control,

especially when I think I am.

 

My world is run by kids

who laugh and play

and cry and hurt

and show me every day

what it means

to experience life

anew.

Looking Out the Window

The window had seen this before. Of course, it had seen lots of things. But those little eyes wet with tears and possessing a depth of longing always made an impression. The window tried to expand itself, tried to grow beyond the walls and bend around corners and magnify the child’s gaze as he looked frantically for his mother. The child pressed his hands and face against the glass. The window hated when they did this. It made it acutely aware that it was the harsh and cruel barrier that was keeping the child from that which he so desperately wanted. The window beckoned to the rays of the sun, warming its surface to help embrace and comfort the boy. It was the best it could do.

As often as the window had witnessed it, it still could not imagine what it must feel like to have your parents leave you. It felt guilty every time it had to allow the child to watch as the parents walk out of the door and down the sidewalk and disappear in the distance. It must be awful. It wanted to use its surface to show a movie or a picture, something to distract the kid, or even just be a wall so the pain did not have to drag on. But no, it stayed, clear and impermeable, accentuating the separation of mother and child, even muffling any sound that may have been of comfort.

The boy spent hours in front of the window that first day, and all the window could do was sit and watch. The other kids were as crazy as ever, bounding up and down the stairs, playing jacks, yelling. The volunteers brought the babies down and spread out on the floor and couches. Life moved on around the boy. Only the window stayed with him the whole time. Every once in a while the boy did turn around, curiosity temporarily overcoming his pain and grief, and he would pick up a toy or watch the other kids. But then the emptiness would draw him back, that lost look that only a mother’s embrace can relieve.

For days after the boy would come back and visit the window. Of course, the window knew he was not really visiting it, but it liked to think of it that way. The window had no idea if the boy had ever been away from his family before. It did not know whether the boy believed his mom would actually come back or not. Was home a loving place or a living hell? Did the boy know he was sick, why he was even there? What was Mom thinking, having to “abandon” her child, letting someone else raise him, nurse him back to health, do the difficult stuff? Overwhelming guilt? Guilt that she was honestly relieved of a crushing burden? So many questions without any clear answers. But they did not really matter. The child’s pain was all the window could see and feel, and that pain was oblivious to any conditioning or mistreatment the boy had received in the past. It hurt. A lot. His world had disappeared. But a new one was emerging.

As each day passed the boy spent less and less time with the window. He went to the park, learned the other kids’ names, was taken to coffee with the doctor, and was spoiled by the volunteers. The window felt a little jealous. It was nice to have company. But it was also satisfying to see the boy fitting in and acting like himself. Kids truly are remarkable. Much more resilient than a pane of glass. (Though the window smugly prided itself on having survived so long in the crazy house– unlike his silly partner in the second room whose cracks had to be taped to keep from spreading.) As much trauma and heartache as these kids have endured, they are still that: kids. Unbreakable and full of hope who give more life and love– freely and unconditionally– than can ever be hoped to be showered upon them.  

Commentary on “Letting Your Heart Break”

>>>This post is less of a story and more of a window into my own thoughts and personality. It has little entertainment value but will hopefully help you understand me more. <<<

 

When was the last time your heart broke? I ask this of myself from time to time. It was first posed to me a couple years ago and it stopped me with both its simplicity and depth. When was the last time your heart broke?

I think many people’s first response would involve a broken heart. But I want to try to resist that. The idea that I want to capture is “letting” your heart break: the conscious act of welcoming a consuming emotion that leaves you vulnerable and spent and which can take you to an experience completely outside of yourself.^§

I can be a very cold and demanding person. I can be brutally honest and suffocatingly rigid. I can lock down all of my emotions. My face becomes blank. My decisions and judgments are entirely analytical. I become focused and distant. Untouchable. This might have served me well on the baseball field or might still during stressful and pressure filled moments in the hospital. Now it provides me a singular focus when I am learning and studying. It does not serve me well, however, when I have to talk about relationships or when I am in an argument with someone I care about.

I have a wall that I can put up almost immediately. It is more like a curtain, I guess, that when it falls becomes completely impenetrable. I callously walk away from and ignore battles I do not think are worth fighting or I endure that which I know I must but let the words and appeals crash harmlessly against me, leaving no effect. Or I launch truths or judgments from safely behind my wall to land with a self-vindicating destructive force that has no hope of retaliation. It is a ruthless situation.

When I let me heart break, though, this all melts away. (Note I did not say “be broken”.) Sometimes it happens naturally. Sometimes I have to force it. And sometimes I can feel it on the threshold, teetering, waiting for permission before crashing down and bringing my walls/curtains with it. It is then that I feel most human (and least robotic). It is then when I feel that I am at my best: when I am engaging in the world around me, learning and understanding, full of empathy that allows me to decide what is best and right more than any analytical thought alone could do.

When I talk about a breaking heart and the flood of emotion, it does not have to be pain. Grief and suffering are provocative, yes, but so are joy and happiness. Even profound confusion has its beauty. What I am trying to capture in the idea of the breaking heart is the sensation of fullness, of over-powering emotion that threatens to burst forth from the chest, that dull force that started from the deepest recesses whthin but which has outgrown its confines in a solitary being and seeks to emerge and connect with the life force outside. It is easy to get lost in its power, to be blinded by the emotions. But it is undeniably pure, and it is that which makes it so compelling for me.

I should not be ruled by my emotions, but my emotions should inform my world and me of others’ worlds. Without listening to my emotions, without naming and acknowledging my emotions, it would be extremely difficult to be present, to be engaged, to be in the moment.

 

^§I see this as more than a discussion between the Myers-Briggs F vs T because the experience of having your heart break must be profound. This experience does not tell me which cereal to buy in the supermarket or which girl to chase in the bar. It should get at the very heart of what it means to be human, or what it means to be alive, or what it means to survive in and share this world. The “moral” may not be immediately apparent but viscerally there appears something that was not there before and whose presence leaves me changed. It demands my full attention. Some people have a choice of whether to participate or not (me) and it may be that more often they choose not to participate. Others are simply gripped and pulled along for the ride whether they want to or not.