Tuesday Thoughts - What I Think I May Know For Sure...

"Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community" -A.D'Angelo

COMMUNITY IN THE WORLD'S LARGEST SLUMS

Having travelled into the depths of The Heart of Darkness several times, spending time in the Mathare and Kibera slums of Kenya, I was told it was best to repeat the Lords Prayer from within while interacting with slum dwellers (as I would be witnessing the lowest of lows).

I came back to North America each time with pity in my heart, not for those in the slums of Africa, however pity for those at home. Walking out my front door in the upscale Vancouver Yaletown neighbourhood is where the Lord's Prayer had to be repeated from within, not in the slum lands of Africa.

The lack of community spirit was appalling back home in North America.  In the depths of proverty in the outskirts of Nairobi, I witnessed neighbours helping neighbours, looking after one another. Not one stranger begged for money in the slums, instead they reached out to touch my blond hair repeating "how do you do, how do you do". The limited English words they knew did not include the vocabulary for money begging (that was saved for those outside of the slums, a few steps below the emerging middle class system).

COMMUNITY ON THE HOMEFRONT

In Vancouver, stepping outside my door, into the community:

-I do not know the neighbours around me

-I do not dare say hello to those I pass walking down the street (and those that do stop to say hello ask if I have money to get them a coffee or for bus fare)

- I get hit up for money a dozen times making a two block walk to my local Urban Fare Grocery store

-Lost souls are not reaching out with "how do you do, how do you do" instead they are sitting in their own barf of stink strung out from their last high, tailing you for money for their next fix

Truly do think at times I live in the "real" slums of all slums in downtown Vancouver...with lost souls all around me, combined with a lack of true community spirit...

However in saying that, I have observed the street dwellers of Vancouver do have their own community amongst themselves.  I have seen them great one another with hugs and "hey dude" high fives, sharing their meager belongings with one another. I have seen one group of Granville Street cardboard dwellers share a piece of cardboard with a new comer and I have seen a lost soul wander the street down from my house in tears, wailing up a storm (with passers by looking down at her in pure disgust) and another lost soul coming up and consoling her.

Makes you wonder who has real community spirit them or us?  And why do I instinctively say them or us? Should we not all be one as collective humans?

HARD HIT AREAS IN CANADA/USA

It was an eye opener these last few months to witness community spirit where I least expected to find it.  As we hit month 3 of our nomadiversary, we have stayed in more squatting type areas than we have in higher end KOAs.  What we have observed, staying a night or two in these areas, is community spirit is alive and well.

Areas where beat up RVs are homes to those on the East Coast of Canada (Maritimers that have 3 plus jobs to pay the bills due to the decline in the fishing industry), to those in northern small towns in the States (that were in week two of a massive power outage), to those in Southern Texas (that have nothing left due to Harvey) living in beat up/borded windowed RVs with torn up signs, boat and house pieces scattered around them (with disaster recovery in some of these small waterside towns in Southern Texas still at under 10 percent, we felt like the hurricane had just hit a few days versus a few months ago).

Sitting around the camp fires sharing stories with our fellow squatters was priceless. In some of these make shift communities, if you added a few pigs on the outskirts, and took away the running water we were hooked up to along with our sinks and toilets, and stripped away the right to education, almost thought I was back in the slums of Nairobi, where community spirit was in overdrive.

Was not asked for money (not even once) at these community campsites across Canada/US we crashed in on. Similar to standing out white in The Heart of Darkness, we were standing out Brilliant Silver in The Lands of Devastation. A listening ear, a smile and sharing in the community spirit was all that was required.

Suspect when fellow humans see the worse that nature has to offer, community spirit displays the best that human spirit has to offer.

THOUGHTS TO PONDER

Does make me wonder, back in the comfort of my Vancouver highrise condo lifestyle, what would it take to give birth to true community spirit in my neighbourhood? God forbid the big shakedown of an earthquake (that we are told is long over due)...sad but true, I think that is indeed what it would take.

I struggle with the idea of community, went through a little shell shock each time I returned back from The Heart of Darkness and looked around at the homelessness within reach of my very own front door. When we return to Vancouver mid month (taking a two week hiatus from life on the road, jumping on a plane taking care of some business back in YVR) I will go through a little shell shock once again and struggle with the lack of community spirit in the heart of downtown Vancouver, especially after witnessing TEXAS STRONG in the southern part of the State, where only skeletons of "what was" exist, yet community spirit rules the days (the down and out helping the down and out).

It does start at home, I get that.  I do the open house thingy for my immediate neighbours so I know who they are, I (along with countless others) do the East Side volunteering, the warm clothing drives, I buy those down on their luck a meal versus ignoring them when they reach out for money (strange how lots decline the meal and want the money instead, it is at that point I walk away, as they curse me in the background).  At times it leads me to believe we are not making a dent and Vancouver is getting worse, not better...

Or is it???   "Little by little a little becomes a lot"...

I think back to a wealthy friend of mine that would gather all our used wine and pop bottles (in Vancouver you can cash them in) and drag them down to East Hastings Street every month, he would only hand out a big bag of bottles to the most down and out individuals he could find. For years I never understood why the most desolate individual he could spot would get the bottles. One day he shared with me that he had a brother, the last he heard he was living on the streets of Toronto. It was his hope that what he was doing in Vancouver someone in Toronto was doing for his brother.

Every person out on the street; down and out, kicked out, strung out, mentally checked out, is someone's baby/someone's brother/someone's  sister...

To quote an African proverb: "If you think you are too small to make a difference you haven't spent a night with a mosquito"

I still struggle with the homelessness outside of my glass tower highrise in Vancouver.  I stand solid in my belief that throwing change/a few bills their way and walking away is not the answer, however I am challenged as to what the answer is, it has to be deeper than providing a meal or collecting warm clothing to hand out on cold nights, as that is only a temporary patch up. And while community does exist amongst the street dwellers, those of us that think we are above are actually below when it comes to community spirit amongst ourselves.  

Sad to think it may take a natural disaster for us to smarten up and figure it all out.

Thoughts/comments welcome...

Peace Out

xo