Tomatoes in Spaghetti

Tonight I sit. I sit and wonder where to begin. The depths of this culture, and the weight of its problems have just been splattered in my face like a child sneaking up behind me and squirting me in the eyes with a water pistol. No warning. Completely caught off guard. I find myself blinded by the very thing I'm attempting to wrap my head around.

Disillusioned. I feel a bit disillusioned about what is really happening around me. I guess when it all comes at you at once, you just kind of throw up both fists and close your eyes. I read all these books and do my best to be an activist when I'm in the US, but when I get here and those words on the pages are suddenly selling me tomatoes in the market, I find it hard to transfer. How do I get from ink on a page to real skin and bones with blood flowing through their veins?

I guess it's human nature. When you encounter things of such extreme magnitude, the human mind must just slip on its magical glasses that allows you to look directly at someone and not have a clue about what they live like each day. For some extremely odd reason, it is easier for me to ignore poverty over here. Did I just write that? Even in my head, it makes absolutely no sense! I don't know how I can live on the same piece of property as a man, his wife, two children and flock of chickens, and never pause to think about what he must be thinking about. What does poverty feel like? What does your stomach feel like, in the depths of you, when you are malnourished?

Terms. We love terms. We like it even more to just put a term on someone.

Orphan... A child with no parents. That's easy enough. I can sleep comfortably at night with that term. How does it feel to watch and attempt to process through your parents dieing in front of your very eyes at the age of four? It's completely out of my realm of thought. What does it feel like now, five years later, when the people taking care of you have lost interest in you? You feel like you're not human? "Do I deserve this?", you must think. "Maybe I do deserve this. Maybe I am second class."

Poverty. Apparently this term puts you under some imaginary line that we've formulated. When someone is "below the poverty line" we can easily wash out their face and chunk them in the pile with the rest of the faceless numbers that we like to strategize about. What does it feel like? What goes through your head when you know these few bites of nsima aren't going to keep your child from waking up half-way through the night screaming for more to eat? Does it seem harder to breathe when you feel the weight of all your problems stacking up on your head like water basin after water basin? Do you live in fear that at any second, you'll step on a rock, loose balance, and the water will plummet to the ground?

Poverty. We just love that word! We love to slap it on the covers of trendy magazines. Toss it around over a cup of coffee with friends. Say it oh so strategically in a campaign speech. It's just become one of those "all-American words" these days. We love that word! But, I hate what that word has done in me! Like a dusty wind, it has dried all the tears from my eyes. If it's too hard to grasp what it feels like, then I guess I just shouldn't even bother reaching.

So, I find myself at the market, starring into the eyes of a person... not a word on a page in a book on my shelf in my air-conditioned house. This is real. This person has kids, probably playing around behind the market, waiting for their mom to sell just a few more tomatoes and maybe tonight they will be able to have a nibble of chicken with their nsima. So, I look at this person. What do I see? I see a blur. They are talking, but I simply hear words. I'm thinking about two things... tomatoes and kwacha (money). Surely 15 cents is entirely too much for four tomatoes, I must get her down to 12 cents. So... I do. And I walk home with my bags full of vegetables and my pockets full of kwacha... and I make spaghetti.

What did tomato lady do tonight? You think that even passed through my mind? She lives over in that distant place called "poverty". At some point I will devise a cure-all program for her and all the rest of her faceless friends. But, for tonight... there's spaghetti... and it tastes good!! When I'm done with that, I'll make some tea, grab a book and read a little... write in my journal about that place called "poverty" and then mosey on to bed. Of course, not before a nice bath at just the right temperature.

Man... that spaghetti sure was good!

That was an excerpt from my journal a few nights ago. I just had this huge urge to do something artsy. This was after thumbing through a copy of Relevant Magazine... that always gets my creative juices flowing! If I would have had a paint brush, I would have just painted... but I didn't. So, I wrote.

As I began to write, the Lord began to bring together a lot of what I had been experiencing over the last month. Things that I have been guilty of. Things that I hate in myself, but they are true. They are sneaky and true!

When I was finished writing, I read back through it. For the first time since I have been here, I just began to weep. Weeping for the people around here. Weeping because even still, I don't get it. Weeping because I am still so selfish.

I just began to beg God to change my eyes. To give me the ability to look at the crowds with compassion. To soften my heart. To see people as people... not numbers.

Perhaps this is just the beginning of the process God is taking me through to help me understand things around here a little better.