The defining moment in my life that shifted the way I was thinking...and brought me to ubuntu.
Great question. Tough to answer.
In the sense of living and breathing and working and playing.
I don't have to say much here as we all know this fact. We truly won some sort of life lottery to be born in Canada. Were we spiders in our last life and someone's making up for that? Or why, how, are we chosen for the lives we are born into?
A few examples of what I've heard recently from my host family about life in Central America:
1) My host family "dad" has a brother who was in Parque Central, walking across the street. He was hit by a truck in traffic and the taxistas around the park knew he would likely drive away, as so many do here. So, they ran and shouted and set up benches and boxed him in. Rather than getting out and admitting to the crime, he backed up and ran over the same man again, killing him for sure. What happened to the offender? He paid his way out of jail immediately. No justice for the family whatsoever.
2) The family's son had two children and wanted to get into the military for steady work and pay...but, he was hurt badly in a hazing incident and was given absolutely nothing – no pension, no payment, no settlement. He started work at the brewery here, the only job he could get, and hurt his back even further carrying large packages. Now, he has no job, and can't work as he needs surgery. He doesn't know when he will have surgery, so if he was to get a job he would have to miss a day and therefore be fired. If he was fired, he wouldn't work in Quetzaltenango again. He now has three children to support. No home, no job.
3) During the days of the war here in Guatemala, in the late 90's, two college students were out of town and innocently picked some radishes from a local garden to eat. The owners of the garden started shouting that the students were stealing from them, and the town surrounded them. They were burned alive by the town residents.
4) A Guatemalan political official published the Truth & Reconciliation report here and was murdered by a cinder block to the head a day after.
5) Monday at school I was chatting with one of the teachers. She told me about her family, two children and a husband who works in Chicago. He had to move to Chicago to make money as he couldn't find a job here and they hadn't seen each other in over a year. They skype as often as possible, etc etc. Anyway...today I found her again and she instantly opened up to me about how her husband had just asked her for a divorce the day earlier...because he had cheated on her several times.
She told me when she cries, she only cries at night so her children won't hear her. The skies were raining down on us and I told her that maybe it was the sky crying tears for her. I gave her a huge hug and couldn't stop my own tears from flowing. To think of how she had just told me earlier with such pride about her husband making the "hard choice" to go and live away from his family to make money for them. To think about the many women that this happens too here...ugh.
These are just some of the horrors that Guatemalans face and have faced. And there's so much more, it's an injustice for me to post this without mentioning the documentary about the Guatemalan civil war, "When the Mountains Tremble". And I've heard even worse stories to come from El Salvador, that I will come to learn more about in the next two weeks.
Being around all of this tragedy, the sorrows, and the lack of opportunity makes it easier to get through any darkness or hard times of my own. Everyone has them, for various reasons. When I feel like I have a weight on me, a sadness or a true sorrow, I close my eyes and remember the park here. The people sleeping on the street. The street dogs. The humble family that I live with. Katputli Nagar in India. The women in those slums trying to make a life for their family. The girls I knew that were already married at just a few years old. The street kids with no shoes, no pants and only a huge smile. The friend I made in Zimbabwe, whose father was killed by witch doctors. The children huddled around a stick fire, trying to seek out the last of the day's heat before returning to their homes made from the earth.
I am such a spec.
My heartaches are not the first, nor the last that will ever be. Nor will they make headlines. It doesn't mean they are non-existent and I honour them as such. However, it's humbling to remember how small they are in the sum of the world's problems. And that brings me to the final point - that if I can see the opportunity in them, the joy that can rise out of them - and move forward from them with lessons learned - if I can try to apply those lessons to something productive...and something positive - then maybe I can bring something worthwhile to the world. And that is, in the end, what matters here.
Cheers to my buddy Zach for emailing me this saying as it is so clear and concise. I may never win the 6/49, but I already won the life lottery.
A few examples of what I've heard recently from my host family about life in Central America:
1) My host family "dad" has a brother who was in Parque Central, walking across the street. He was hit by a truck in traffic and the taxistas around the park knew he would likely drive away, as so many do here. So, they ran and shouted and set up benches and boxed him in. Rather than getting out and admitting to the crime, he backed up and ran over the same man again, killing him for sure. What happened to the offender? He paid his way out of jail immediately. No justice for the family whatsoever.
2) The family's son had two children and wanted to get into the military for steady work and pay...but, he was hurt badly in a hazing incident and was given absolutely nothing – no pension, no payment, no settlement. He started work at the brewery here, the only job he could get, and hurt his back even further carrying large packages. Now, he has no job, and can't work as he needs surgery. He doesn't know when he will have surgery, so if he was to get a job he would have to miss a day and therefore be fired. If he was fired, he wouldn't work in Quetzaltenango again. He now has three children to support. No home, no job.
3) During the days of the war here in Guatemala, in the late 90's, two college students were out of town and innocently picked some radishes from a local garden to eat. The owners of the garden started shouting that the students were stealing from them, and the town surrounded them. They were burned alive by the town residents.
4) A Guatemalan political official published the Truth & Reconciliation report here and was murdered by a cinder block to the head a day after.
5) Monday at school I was chatting with one of the teachers. She told me about her family, two children and a husband who works in Chicago. He had to move to Chicago to make money as he couldn't find a job here and they hadn't seen each other in over a year. They skype as often as possible, etc etc. Anyway...today I found her again and she instantly opened up to me about how her husband had just asked her for a divorce the day earlier...because he had cheated on her several times.
She told me when she cries, she only cries at night so her children won't hear her. The skies were raining down on us and I told her that maybe it was the sky crying tears for her. I gave her a huge hug and couldn't stop my own tears from flowing. To think of how she had just told me earlier with such pride about her husband making the "hard choice" to go and live away from his family to make money for them. To think about the many women that this happens too here...ugh.
These are just some of the horrors that Guatemalans face and have faced. And there's so much more, it's an injustice for me to post this without mentioning the documentary about the Guatemalan civil war, "When the Mountains Tremble". And I've heard even worse stories to come from El Salvador, that I will come to learn more about in the next two weeks.
Being around all of this tragedy, the sorrows, and the lack of opportunity makes it easier to get through any darkness or hard times of my own. Everyone has them, for various reasons. When I feel like I have a weight on me, a sadness or a true sorrow, I close my eyes and remember the park here. The people sleeping on the street. The street dogs. The humble family that I live with. Katputli Nagar in India. The women in those slums trying to make a life for their family. The girls I knew that were already married at just a few years old. The street kids with no shoes, no pants and only a huge smile. The friend I made in Zimbabwe, whose father was killed by witch doctors. The children huddled around a stick fire, trying to seek out the last of the day's heat before returning to their homes made from the earth.
I am such a spec.
My heartaches are not the first, nor the last that will ever be. Nor will they make headlines. It doesn't mean they are non-existent and I honour them as such. However, it's humbling to remember how small they are in the sum of the world's problems. And that brings me to the final point - that if I can see the opportunity in them, the joy that can rise out of them - and move forward from them with lessons learned - if I can try to apply those lessons to something productive...and something positive - then maybe I can bring something worthwhile to the world. And that is, in the end, what matters here.
Cheers to my buddy Zach for emailing me this saying as it is so clear and concise. I may never win the 6/49, but I already won the life lottery.
I think your post is so very true....but although WE have won the life lottery - there are many many Canadians who haven't. We struggle with poverty here as well, maybe not to the same extent because we don't have as many people but I hear stories everyday that sound very similar happening here in our backyards. I think we are lucky mostly to have been born to the families we were - or lucky we chose the right ones?? Can't wait for you to be back so that we can talk more on this subject. Miss you so
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you Ang, there is much poverty and unfortunately extremely bad luck in Canada. But - to be born where health care is free and the country (tries) to look after us when we're old and we have freedom and (some) equality as women - it is much much much much much much much higher of a chance for us to succeed than in war-torn countries or countries with no health care, so much pollution, no system even to keep their sewage out of the streets...you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, tomorrow Esparanza here is going to donate blood for our host families son so that he can have surgery soon and it's going to cost them 250 quetzeles for a LITER of blood. Can you imagine not having enough money to buy the blood that will/could save your son's life?
Ei yi yi.
Great point. And can't wait to talk more about it too.
LOVE YOU.
One more point, sorry: the thing about being born in Canada is that we're instantly among the top 10% of the richest in the world - true, true poverty is not having a house, sleeping in the streets, selling tiny cars or veggies on the sidewalk...it's not having your basic needs met. In Canada, we have every opportunity in the world - and food programs - and welfare even - to help us take care of our basic needs. That's the only side of it that I see that makes me KNOW that we are so lucky. The image of the slums still stays in my mind...because there is truly nothing like that in Canada except for maybe on some reserves...which is very sad... and we did that to them; however, that's EVERYWHERE in India. You know what I mean? And in Canada, if someone was killed in a park, no one would ever be able to pay their way out of that. Many things like that are just normal around here. And so sad.
ReplyDeletemrow.