Walk a Mile in My Shoes

I hear it often, and I wince a little each time.

Why don’t they just….

• …. get a job
• … go back to school
• … pick up the garbage
• … *fill in the blank

I grew up poor and I was able….

• … get a job
• … complete school
• … *fill in the blank

They need to stop ….

• ….  drinking
• …. having babies
• ….*fill in the blank

They must be…

• … lazy
• … ignorant
• … criminal
• …*fill in the blank

Let’s be honest, if it was that easy to succeed, the world wouldn’t have these social issues.  Every country in the world has its most vulnerable population.  It’s how we treat the most vulnerable that tells us about the society we live in.

It’s far too easy to pass judgment onto others. 

Dictating what they should or could be doing differently  is easier than trying to understand the realities of their why.

You know the saying, to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.   Well here in Ecuador, having shoes that fit is a luxury for far too many.

I remember reading a story one time about perception. 

I will share by memory; the details may be a little off, but the lesson is clear.

There were  5  rowdy children on a bus, jumping, yelling, fighting and generally annoying the other passengers.   The father, seemingly oblivious to the chaos his children were creating was staring off into space.   The passengers were getting more and more annoyed at the unruly kids and the father for not disciplining them.

Dirty looks, head shaking and judgment passing from the eyes of one passenger to another.    Finally someone, frustrated enough,  speaks to the father and says assertively.

Listen Mister, can you discipline your kids, they’re annoying everyone on the bus!  

The father snaps out of his trance, looks at the irate passenger and says in a broken voice:

I’m sorry.  My wife just died, their mother.  We just left the hospital.  

There was an instant perception shift amongst  the passengers.  They started to console the father, talk to the kids, hug them and smother them in love and understanding.   Their sneers turned to tears and words of compassion.

It’s a powerful story  

It speaks volumes about how our perception of a situation can negatively or positively impact our reaction to others.

I once shared a story here in Ecuador about a lady ready to give birth to twins.  She was having a medically difficult pregnancy.  She had 5 kids at home with little food. That is all people knew.  I was rather shocked when some of the comments were “perhaps you could teach her about birth control”  or “why did she keep having children”.

I asked one lady, if she would have made this comment had she known the husband died recently in a traffic accident, or left her for a younger woman?   Would knowing more change her perception about what was happening rather than publicly insinuating it must be her fault for being sexually irresponsible.

Did these folks really feel they were being helpful at that moment?

Did they really believe what this women needed at this moment of crisis was condoms and a brochure on birth control?  Shaking our moral finger at her while she holds her head in shame.

Often times, things are not as they seem.

I was a 17 yr old single mom, couch surfing for years, living off the welfare system with a large chip on my shoulder and chronic substance use issues.    I understand THAT world very well.   What makes me different than the single moms in our support group?

I was born in Canada and I know how to read.

I have not lived in Canada since 2011, I hear things have gotten worse in some areas post covid and I know that some are now homeless due to the high cost of housing.   However, pre-covid,  if you were homeless, its more likely because you had mental health issues.  One of many that fall through the cracks of our mental health system.  Drug addicts or alcoholics, having burnt all the bridges of family and friends, may end up on the streets, bouncing in and out of jail, hospital and rehabilitation programs.

 

In Ecuador you certainly have these same situations, but you also have more.  Women are often left to raise their children without a father.  Its not even frowned upon for these men to start multiple families and not pay for their children.   Getting child support is challenging and the onus is on the mother.

 

Many living in poverty are illiterate, they cannot write their own names.   Kept out of school as a child, by no fault of their own, the cycle of poverty contains some deep-seated and generational ignorance that is difficult to break free of.

The realities of life: 

Many can’t read or write, don’t have a phone, proper shoes or clothes. Some  earn $50 per month government assistance, to eat and transport themselves to find work.  Under these conditions, the leap to becoming employable is cluttered with real-life,  mountain-like hurdles.

 

Many live in bamboo homes with no windows, few tables or counters and no floors.  Their clothes kept in heaps in bags or boxes on the floor.   How do they secure a cleaning job when they’re not even sure what all the different cleaners are used for and can’t read the bottles?  Who is going to hire you, without experience and without a reference saying you are trustworthy to be in someone’s home?

When you have no water in your home, no money to keep a proper supply of toilet paper, sanitary napkins or soap for the whole month, how challenging to keep yourself, your children and your home clean?

When you have no fridge and a one burner hotplate, or hole in the ground to cook from, how can you shop for more than one day at a time?    Some homes use take out containers as their personal dishes and they share one cup to drink from.   How is it you have the know-how and ability to cook and sell food, when you barely have the equipment to supply a cooked meal to your family.

There is no dignity left

When you have to poop in a bag, wipe with a ripped cloth and wonder what you can feed your children tonight.  Then people judge you because you don’t seem to care about the garbage piling up outside your house.

 

How do you leave a resume without having any work experience, a phone number without a phone, a phone without minutes,  an address out in the middle of a mud pit somewhere. When it rains, you have a difficult time walking out of the barrio to get to a job or school.   Passing through streets where the rain and sewage are mixed under your feet.

The level of poverty here is not what we see in Canada. 

Even the addicted homeless get a welfare or disability check once a month in Canada, even if they choose to spend  it on drugs.

A single mother can apply for welfare, apply for grants/loans to go to school. They can live in subsidized housing with subsidized daycare, collect food hampers and use the services of various local charities to help the family get through.  The courts will chase the dead-beat dads for child support. In the end, the mom can have an education where she can become gainfully employed and raise her family. I know because I did it myself as a young single teen mother.

There is absolutely none of these services here.  They are truly left on their own.

There has always been poverty in the world, some countries more than others.   What we can’t deny is that the most vulnerable in Ecuador, and in the world,  have been affected the deepest by the covid lockdowns and they still have not recovered.   It threw an already desperate population even further down, increasing substance use, crimes of desperation and gang membership to epic proportions.

There is a deep-seated belief that people living in these outlying barrios in extreme poverty must be due to something they did or didn’t do.  Due to laziness, drugs, alcohol, or criminal activity, but that is simply not true.

Poverty is not just about the lack of money, it is about a lack of hope that anything will or can change. This leaves people with few choices and often a seething anger at the injustice that can lead them in the wrong direction.

One person, one organization, cannot change this manmade situation, but individually we can choose compassion over callous indifference, empathy over judgment.    We may not be able to help everyone, but we can surely do our best not treat those wallowing in the gutters, like they deserve to be there.

I challenge you, the next time you see someone in need,  take a moment, look down at their feet and take a short walk in their shoes.