I remember learning about social apathy in Freshmen Psychology class. The professor described a horrific scene in which a woman was murdered on a bridge while it was full of traffic. Everyone looked on but no one did a thing. I remember hoping that if I should ever find myself in a situation like that I would do the "right" thing. I would face the injustice head on, regardless of the consequences for myself. I hoped that I would be brave but luckily it never truly came to that point. Sure, I volunteered to fight the injustices of poverty, education and violence. In any given year, I would travel to Guatemala to build houses, teach Somalian refugees how to ride the Blacksburg Transit or purchase gifts for an Angel on the Salvation Army Christmas tree. It's not to say that I wasn't doing enough but I rarely found myself in situations where doing the "right" thing was really all that challenging. I am a good, compassionate person but I wouldn't include brave or bold under my list of personal qualities. Sure, I hope to be both brave and bold but I have had the luxury of being an upeer-middle class American from a strong family with good friends and great opportunities. Up until now, my chances to be brave and bold were limited to sports competitions and managing sorority and workplace politics. There, in the US, horrific events take place every day but they were always so far from my reality. Here, in St. Vincent, they are right at my doorstep, so egregious that you can smell the inhumanity as if it were a freshly baked pie of all the terrible things that humans can do to one another.
She is in the hospital this week. She is 9 years old. The rumor around town is that she was pushed by a four year old and fell onto a steel pipe. It was up the hill where nobody lives and nobody saw. They were fighting over a piece of bread. But the truth of it is, that story just does not work. She had a steel pipe invade her private parts. Her sister, 13, has a similar story from when she was 10 years old, the only difference is that she accidentally fell on a stick. So I won't make any assumptions but I will tell you that when I look at the youngest sister in the bunch, she's 7, my heart aches in a way that it never has before.
He just started attending school this past Monday. He is 7. Mom did not have the money to send him to school so he spent his kindergarten year and the first 5 months of his first grade year hanging around his house. First grade is a scary place for him. The only way to describe the way he looks is lost but there is a light. In the dim lighting of my office turned into a classroom, he gives off a certain energy when he listens to me read. It is an energy of hopefulness, excitement,and the bliss of learning as a child. I can't help it; my eyes fill with tears when we get to a poem titled "The Question." He didn't come to school today, teacher says he is already on holiday.
She just wanted to lime at the beach for a day. She just wanted to let loose and have some fun. Sure, she knew that she shouldn't be drinking but it felt so good. She stood at the makeshift bar, winding her hips and making eyes with any man who looked like he might be able to give her the love she so desperately needed. Hours later, her head is being held underwater as three men come at her. It was too late by the time someone brave came along. One had already gotten through. She ran down to the other side of the beach desperate to get away. She wrung her hands, feeling the shame of the day as if it were a rock holding her under the water. She did not mean for it to go this way but it seems to happen often. These situations that get out of control have become so regular that her life is spinning.
And I wish with all of me that I could say the things above are just stories. I wish that I could tell you that I read about them in the news but these are stories that I have had so close to my skin, I can still feel the tingle. This is the raw edition of life that is happening around the world but it is my first true experience with it. What to do? If you have an answer, please send it along. For now I listen to my parents. My dad says that he truly believes that all any parent wants for their children is a better life than what they had. My mother says that a person can only know what they have been taught or exposed to. So I go on with it hoping that what they have told me is true. Together with my community, we can teach and expose people to more, to kindness and to love. Through education and exposure, parents can see their dreams for their children come through. Social apathy, it turns out, is not just doing the "right" thing at the right moment; it is striving and struggling to do as much good as you can with all that you have.
Another volunteer told me that she had been contacted by someone who had just been placed in St. Vincent (they are arriving this Saturday!). She was disappointed to have a cushy placement like the Caribbean where we have electricity and running water. This what I will say to her, "Gawl, jes because yo ha water running out ah di pipes, dat doesn't mek it easy."
"The Question"
by Dennis Lee
If I could teach you how to fly
Or bake an elderberry pie
Or turn sidewalks into stars
Or play new songs on an old guitar
Or if I knew the way to heaven
The names of night, the taste of seven
And owned them all, to keep or lend--
Would you come and be my friend?
You cannot teach me how to fly.
I love the berries but not the pie.
The sidewalks are for walking on,
And an old guitar has just one song.
The names of night cannot be known,
The way to heaven cannot be shown.
You cannot keep, you cannot lend--
But still I want you for my friend.
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