About fifteen minutes ago I was sitting on the couch in the lounge room of my house in Dublin, in front of the (fake) open fire, trying to do some homework. The doorbell rang. Curiosity won over wardrobe, and I decided to see who it was rather than simply hide because I was wearing pyjama pants. I opened the door on a cold, blustery day, to find two people standing on my doorstep. The younger was a little boy of about 5, with flaming red hair and freckles, wearing a blue parka and munching on a 'fun-size' chocolate bar. The older was clearly his mother. She same complexion and fiery hair, but looked stressed and drawn and impatient. She unleashed a gush of words in an accent so think I struggled to understand it, but the effect of it was that she was looking for "clothing, food, money, anything you can spare ma'am"... I was somewhat surprised because I'd never experienced this before - sure, kids come around door-knocking all the time for 40 hour famine, or MS readathon, and those kinds of things, but I had never experienced door-to-door 'begging' of this kind.
I hate being faced with beggars (good grief I hate that word) . I know most people do. But the reason is that I simply don't understand why my initial reaction is to make the situation go away! Why is my first instinct to say no?? Why is it that so many people immediately default to suspicion and distrust? I almost never say no to someone who is begging, regardless of what they ask me for, but when I was having lunch with my mum in Dublin last week, something happened. We were sitting at a table in a little italian street-cafe, when a woman walked past with a scarf over her head and a baby in her arms. She began asking us for money in that almost sing-song, chanting kind of way which always draws attention and makes people at nearby tables glad that it's not them being asked. My mother - seasoned traveller - replied brusquely "no, thank you. no", and the woman (only a girl, really) walked away.
That got me thinking. My mum and I disagree on a lot of things, and this is probably one of them. But my concern wasn't so much about my mother's and my divergent opinions - it was more about the fact that I am on a ridiculously generous scholarship studying humanitarian assistance in a great country, yet still struggle to deal with need, poverty and crisis in my own environment.
I don't think anyone would disagree that when you see a person 'begging' in your own home town or when travelling, it is an unpleasant thing to see. Whether you're gallivanting around Florence on a fun european holiday, or in Melbourne jabbering on your expensive mobile while rushing off to your expensive car to drive back to your expensive house, it always serves (for me, anyway) to highlight the massive gap between the haves and the have nots. And it is always uncomfortable to be so blatantly shoved in to the category of the haves, even if that's where you would ultimately choose to be. However, every time, you are faced with a choice. You can avoid eye contact, put your head down, grunt and rush past (to feel bad about it for at least the rest of the day, possiby longer), or you can smile, say hi, see if we've got a couple of bucks to spare, and walk away happy in the knowledge that the $5 you just handed over will not be missed in any significant way.
Obviously, when you get into the field of humanitarian assistance you need to have much more strongly developed boundaries. But what I am learning more and more from studying the philosophy of aid work and humanitarian assistance is that I had better bloody get used to my uneasy place among the 'haves'. As humanitarian aid workers in training, we are being told that we *need* to have boundaries. It is virtually impossible (not to mention horribly patronising) to enter a crisis situation, a warzone, a disaster zone or a refugee camp, and presume that we are all in the same boat, all been dished up the same crap-pie, and all "in it together". Because you know just as soon as the shit hits the fan we will be on the first UN plane out of there, and the locals will be left behind to deal with whatever's left. I think my colleagues and I would like to imagine that in the heat of the moment, we would be stronger and more committed than that. But who can tell? I guess you can't know until you've actually been there.
I'm not really sure what my point is here. I think I like my blog better when I write about spiders and bicycles! I guess I just want to challenge you (and myself) to think more carefully about the way we confront need. We have so much. Why do we find it so hard to part with just a tiny portion of it, even when faced with a desperate woman and a hungry baby? Can we close our eyes that easily? Does our selfishness know no bounds? Or are we worried that if we start giving, we won't know where, when or how to stop?
Anyway, I gave the woman and her son a loaf of bread and a bag of carrots. Two minutes after they left I wished I'd invited them in out of the cold for a hot cup of tea.
2 comments:
This stuff resonates strongly with me Jess. I feel like I face these questions in some form on a weekly basis. Can I share a quote?
'It is not love in the abstract that counts. Men have loved a cause as they have loved a woman. They have loved the brotherhood, the workers, the poor, the oppressed - but they have not loved; they have not loved the least of these. They have not loved "personally." It is hard to love. It is the hardest thing in the world, naturally speaking. Have you ever read Tolstoy's Resurrection? He tells of political prisoners in a long prison train, enduring chains and persecution for the love of their brothers, ignoring those same brothers on the long trek to Siberia. It is never the brothers right next to us, but the brothers in the abstract that are easy to love.’
From ‘Meditations’ by Dorothy Day
I think this is tough stuff but I thank God someone in your position is attempting to grapple with it.
Ditto what Kate said...I have so many stories - I'm sure she has more - and even years down the track I'm not sure whether I did the right thing, whether I'd do things differently next time, or whether I'd do them the same...I no longer expect to be able to find clear cut answers, to see black and white - I now expect to see more grey than anything else, and I thank God that I don't have to grapple with these questions on my own, but can do so in a community.
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