Night one. Colombia.
I hop out of the back of a caged truck bed, splashing the filth of a street puddle onto my feet. The night is cool, a gentle breeze still blowing from the storm, earlier that day. A man, reeking of urine, stumbles into me. I’m not phased, just taking it all in.
Senseless words,
greasy hair,
nervous pacing,
anxious twitching,
uneasy laughter,
rotting teeth,
weak stumbles,
paranoid, side-eyed glances.
Flick, flame, inhale, exhale.
Snap, pop, inject, release.
Twist, chug, sigh, shatter.
Push, twist, pop, swallow.
We come with hot tea, bread rolls, and an invitation to a homeless shelter that offers free rehabilitation services. The desperation and darkness of the alleyway is stomach wrenching. The crowd of fifty, or so, addicts has been herded to this district of Medellin, by the police, in order to keep them unseen by the public eye. As if hiding the suffering will bring resolve…
One, after another, most with home-constructed crack pipes laced between their dirty, blistered fingers, they reach out their shaking hands to be filled with bread. Literally holding both life and death in the same hand, they walk away from the line.
A few barely clothed women wander about the flocks of men. A translator at my side, I sit down beside one of them. Perched atop her surely lice infested mattress, sharing a small corner of the city she calls “home,” I watch her fold and refold her pile of clothes upon the dirty asphalt. After I ask several ignored questions, she asks me a few of her own; mostly curious inquisitions about what my life looks like.
Drifting in and out of sense, she says: “Have you ever tried drugs? What country are you from? Alcohol? Do you have a boyfriend? Why are you here? Do you like my city?” Silence often follows, after the translation is given, and I break it with questions of my own. I learn she’s just eighteen and has been living on the streets for the past three years. She has two siblings, with whom she has no contact. “It’s okay”, she says. Following her nod, I see a man passed out in his own vomit that she calls her ‘street brother.’ She tells me prostitution is her occupation. She likes romance movies, though action’s not her favorite. She likes the freedom the street offers, her favorite color is purple, and she prefers sweet to salty treats.
“What’s something you can teach me about Colombia?”, I ask. “We’re not what people think we are.” she solemnly responds. As I open my mouth to pursue meaning to her response, she picks up a syringe and waves me away; finished with the conversation. As she spits out the needle cap, I thank her, shake her hand, and walk off.
The next evening I flew away from Medellin to a beautiful Colombian island in the middle of the Caribbean, where we’d work with teen youth groups in various churches on the island. The rest of my experience in Colombia looked absolutely nothing like that first night, but that ten minute conversation, ended by that one convicting comment, stuck with me throughout the weeks to come.
“We’re not what people think we are.”
It made me wonder how many times I’ve assumed that I’ve ascertained the sum total of who a human being is, without giving them the chance to tell me. It made me ask myself how often I care to sit, to ask, and to actually allow a person to tell me who they are. It made me curious to know strangers-not to give them a passing smile, not to toss a coin into their cup, or to tip them generously, but to know them.
I want to know how the hurried businessman’s day is going; what presentations he’s about to give. I want to know if the street artist has a day job, or if she’s had any formal training. I want to know if the man sleeping on the park bench has a family, and what his happiest memories are. I want to know if the waiter has a trust fund, or if he’s saving all his money for university.
I want to connect with the people around me; to interact in a new way. I want to understand a piece of their lives that I wouldn’t have otherwise known. The next time I hear someone say “We’re not what people think we are.”, I don’t want to have to ask myself if I’ve ever made someone feel unknown.
