Caras de las calles

This week has been a very intense one for me and eight other students because Bio, our Brazilian teacher for the Missions in Latin America class arrived on Sunday and taught class Monday through Sunday, all day long. We had to get 3 credit hours-worth of class in in one week, and I also had two Intermediate Spanish classes at la Universidad Catolica, Travel as Narrative, and Latin America and the Arts. It’s been insane, but totally worth it. Bio’s class has been an amazing learning experience, that culminated today in a hands-on approach to missions – going out in pairs and just talking to the homeless people that populate the streets.

I paired up with Zanessa, a gorgeous woman of God with a heart for people, especially the poor. Although the class had been given a list of questions to ask the homeless people we encountered, she and I set out with the intention of just talking to them. As soon as we left the Casa, we started to pray that God would put the right people in our path. We went only a few blocks before we found Pablo, a young man sitting against a wall outside a store, begging. He talked to us first, asking us for coins, but when we told him we had none and offered him the Brazilian caramel candies we had in our pockets instead, a conversation opened up. He’s had the same candy when he was a little boy, he said, except in a different wrapper. He welcomed us to sit with him and talk.

We talked about everything, from what foods we liked most in Uruguay to the job situation in the nation’s economy. Pablo told us that he had worked as a metal-worker until recently, but that the economy was such that there were just not enough job opportunities for everyone to be able to work. It was Zanessa that brought up God, easing into it by noting that Pablo’s name was a common name in her favorite book: the Bible.

“Oh, no me gusta mucho,” Pablo had said, shaking his head. He doesn’t believe in God, and doesn’t care much for church, either. The people there are nice, and they won’t kick you out if you want to go sit at the back of a church and get out of the elements, but they can’t help you, not really. It was strange to me that he seemed to have so much hope for the future, because he had no hope in God at all. When we asked him what he did believe in, he said he believed in himself. He said that was all he could depend on. When we told him how much we were learning here in Montevideo, he said that he tried to learn something new every day, so that someday he would know enough to get off the streets.

I was touched by how much love he showed Zanessa and me, despite the fact that he was not a Christian. He genuinely cared about our well-being. He asked us if we walked around at night often, and if we often sat and talked with homeless people; he begged us to be careful, because not everyone would be nice, and since we were women, we would be robbed or worse. He reminded us several times throughout our conversation to be careful, keep our eyes open.

The other person that Zanessa and I encountered was a much older man named Raul. He was wrinkled and his hands shook as he rolled his own cigarettes, his voice rasping out of his throat in between hacking coughs, but he spoke with conviction and clarity. Although Raul did believe in God, and said that he respected him very much, he had no more faith in the church than Pablo did. “Las personas son amables,” he said, “pero dicen mucho y hacen nada.” (They’re nice, but they say a lot and do nothing).

In fact, Raul had very little faith in anything. He viewed the situation in Uruguay as pretty hopeless. When we asked him if the government helped people, he told us that they treated the symptoms, but not the disease. He said that at the core of everything was the need for jobs, not for more temporary shelters or soup kitchens or t-shirt handouts. But he said that he didn’t think Uruguay could ever grow beyond where it is now because it is a poor in the resources that make nations rich. There is no oil here, he said over and over, stressing that this was what made nations powerful on the world market. He said something that I found especially poignant: “South America is the farmer of the world.” He went on to explain that, although everyone depends on the Latin American nations for the raw materials, the foods that they all import, those same nations are taken advantage of by the world market. He said especially that Uruguay had a hard time because it produces all the same products as its larger neighbors, and so gets overlooked.

All in all, the conversations were enlightening and enjoyable, and I wondered why I have always been so nervous and hesitant about talking to homeless people. It’s been a problem of mine, this inability to talk to someone that I perceive as very different from myself; now, with this understanding that these people have important insights to share with me, powerful things to teach me, I will be more willing to stretch my comfort zone to include those who have less than I do. Maybe I’ll accompany Zanessa on more of her walks through the neighborhood, where she seeks to talk to anyone and everyone with a story to tell 🙂

Next weekend brings Spring Break, and Peru! Prayers for good preparation and safe travels would be appreciated. 🙂

~ by Sara McPherson on March 7, 2009.