Pennies
Dressed for success.The dance worked out to perfection. A partnership of plot and precision. Academy award attention to detail and the subtleness of gestures that makes acting seem like “not acting.” Houdini ing things in and out of hands like, well, like Houdini. These savvy business partners were amazing to watch as we sat on the other side of the glass door separating our voyeuristic perch from their place of business. Us drinking coffee inside while they were relentlessly focused on their task at hand outside. Local drug dealers? Local money changers? Local street vendors? No, these were two pre-schoolers. Okay, I guess that is an oxymoron to the max. These two are never likely going to have anything to do with school in any fashion although the brilliance they revealed in their accomplishments would have likely garnered them an A ++ from any teacher.
Dressed in clothes the color of the dirt they sat in all day. Hands, feet and faces the same. Haloed with crispy, matted anemic hair. On the way in for coffee, their wee hands stretched out, their heads tilted, their faces belayed an almost opiated expression and their words were pushed out with desperation “mommie please –I’m hungry”, “only 1 dollar –please.” I crashed into pity. Felt that all too familiar tug in my heart. I determined to fill their hands on the way out with the change I would get. Then, as karma/fate/ or whatever you want to call it, can collide sometimes with our obliviousness to reality so we can perhaps have our eyes opened and learn a little sumpin sumpin , we were seated just inside the glass door. For the next 45 minutes or so we watched these two entrepreneurs pull their faces and in turn pull money out of the pockets and food out of the bags of the people making purchases in this bakery. It seemed so sad and tragic at first to think this is what these little kids do all day long just so they can eat, but the more we watched, the more they seemed like they were actually having fun. A game. A kid’s game like tag or dodge ball only with this gutsy edge to it that made it seem perversely un-childlike. Every time a penny was extracted and the target had moved on, there was the “high five” kind of moment where grins were mirrored back and forth, secret plans were made with unspoken words for the candy that penny would buy and then it disappeared into the dirt colored shorts, the faces were re-set and the dance continued. We even saw the security guard (yes, bakeries in Haiti have security with uniforms and rifles) gather some leftover food from a table and hand it out the door to them –twice.
My dilemma at that point in time was whether or not I was now going to feel the same compassion on my way out as I had felt on my way in. I kind of wished I could have their magic touch at getting money out of pockets. After all, fundraising to support a cause I believe in I what I do the other 99% of the time when I am not actually in Haiti literally engaged with “the cause” I believe in. And, I admit I was a little jealous at how easy they made it seem. It sure never seems easy to me.
Okay, calm down, I’m not really jealous of two poor little kids who lay sprawled like a shipwreck across the doorway of a bakeshop to eat scraps and beg for pennies. I know this is not a game any kid should have to play even if they are really good at it. And, “yes” I want them to be in school getting A+’s for how smart they are. Seeing them in action did not change my initial compassion. I did fill their hands with some pennies on my way out. And, truth be known, it was my friend’s leftover piece of sandwich that was the second thing the guard handed out the door to them at our request.
Okay, so this now begs the greater question –“does this kind of giving perpetuate the problem?” We all know the answer is “yes.” So, now this brings up the seemingly unanswerable question –“so what is the right thing to do?” We all need to at least think about that while we drop our pennies wherever we drop them. I know those kids will be on that step tomorrow and the next day and the next day. I am going to bed tonight, and likely will wake up tomorrow still thinking about this question. Just because something is seemingly unanswerable doesn’t mean there isn’t an answer. Hey, let me know if you have it.
Posted on Tuesday, October 5 2010, at 6:19 PM.