In addition to that first venture into the garbage village, we also went shopping at the Sewq al-Arab. I was with my friend Marty, my “mom” in Egypt, who has taken me under her wing in just about every way. We visited the sewq (market) to find clothes for Mohamed -- a deaf boy from the garbage village, who Marty was enrolling in a special deaf school. We went to the market with Mohamed and his mother Um Mohamed (meaning mother of Mohamed--her first name is Samah), in search of a uniform.
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The whole reason we went to the garbage village that particular day was to pick up Mohamed and his mother, and enroll the boy in a deaf school. Marty had been working since April to get him the right kind of education. She first met Mohamed because there is a school for the handicapped within the garbage village. While most of students are well into their thirties, they are developmentally at about age five. Being deaf, Mohamed was also attending the school. But having no mental handicap, he was bored and, in turn, disruptive.
It was supposed to be Mohamed’s first day at a deaf school in Bassatine. When we arrived, however, they wouldn’t allow him to begin classes without a proper uniform. So we went shopping.
In the sewq, we walked from clothing booth to clothing booth, past fruits, vegetables, all manner of meat, including a numerous fish sellers. The smell of unrefrigerated fish hung in the air, and seemed to stick in my nose the rest of the day. Um Mohamed wanted Marty to buy her nearly everything we saw. And Mohamed was the same. We walked past some small carnival rides, which he decided he had to ride. He cannot speak, nor does he cry loudly. But he stood there pointing at them, then crouched down in protest, until he realized that his fit was to no avail -- and there was no ride for him today. Marty bought him new pants, and new underwear -- he doesn't own any. He refused the first pair of boxer shorts she showed him, though, because he didn't like the pattern. Between Marty and I, we could have bought them anything they wanted. We could have sent them home with bags and bags of clothes, and food. Mohamed could have ridden the carnival ride all day if wanted. But to what end? Only to return home to he garbage village. What would they do with so many things? Isn't that just it -- these are all things. They do not resolve poverty. Things do not bring justice.
The need is so much greater. Um Mohamed, a 28-year old mother of six, is herself totally without an education. In the car she was giving us directions to get to the sewq and she did not know the words for right and left -- they meant nothing to her. She said she never learned them. The need for education is profound. Without it, what can you do with things, but consume them? Not that anyone might blame Um Mohamed for consuming these things, or wanting them -- that is what most of us do - consume, and obey the call to continue consuming. We expect the poor to have some larger vision, to see their need in perspective, and understand that what they really need are not things, but access. Things cannot be converted into opportunities, into choices.
Marty said the other night at dinner that poverty is defined by the inability to make a choice -- not for lack of capacity, but for lack of access and opportunity. I chose which pair of shoes to wear today, and which shirt. The impoverished have no choice, for they have no shoes - or if they do, they only have one pair.
If we think of wealth and poverty in terms of choices -- a qualitative approach, rather than a quantitative formula -- then perhaps we can begin to think about what justice is. How often am I like this deaf boy in the market -- asking for, hungering for everything I see, throwing a fit when I do not get my way, failing to perceive the larger picture? If I were somehow to get everything I asked for, would it be just? Of course not. Such an overabundance would be disgusting. Yet we spend so much time searching after things, and in our hunt to consume them, are the ones consumed.
If I feel compelled to walk humbly, in light of the opportunities I was born into, then perhaps I can better see my own life in terms of choices and opportunities, rather than things. Perhaps I can then see the chances to pass those privileges -- the true privileges of my life -- onto those I encounter. Helping to meet those life-sustaining needs--giving food, water, clothing, shelter--might then open up the doors for people to make more choices for themselves.
I am so grateful for the people I know here, who so actively and tirelessly work to make choices available to those in need. That I could only be more like them...
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