But more than that, don’t look the ragged children in the eye because if you do, you impale their fleeting forms into reality. You transform a vague and abstract presence into living tissue, into flesh and bone, into solid matter, as solid as the loud rap on your window. You look them in the eye, and suddenly, terrifyingly, movingly, you’re no longer looking at a formless mass, you are looking at a four-year-old—if he’s at all so, it’s not easy to reckon age in age-worn faces—trudging along with not much older company, a torn and worn-out T-shirt hanging over his body like a tent.
But this best way of dealing with the problem is the same best way to make the problem stay. Which is the bind. I’ve always thought the only reason we’ve kept out equanimity in the face of the teeming poverty around us, some of its aspects too mind-boggling to contemplate, is that it is invisible to us. It is invisible to us because we do not see it. We do not see it because we do not look it in the eye. And because we do not look it in the eye, the poor, like beggars, or carolers on the street, cease to exist. They are just a blur, a ghost, an apparition that flits by but is swallowed in the dust and smoke when the light flashes green.
By all means let us not give to carolers on the streets, or out-and-out beggars who badger us with their pain and their humiliation. Though heaven knows that isn’t always easy during Christmas, a season dedicated to discovering the existence of others. But whether we give or not, the point is to not be blind to their being there, to not make them disappear in the mind, if not in space, because they are an inconvenient truth. They will continue to be there in space, whether we see them of not: the beggars, the throwers of soapy water on windshields, the children in the streets, who while waiting for the cars to stop stand in awe before the tailoring shop near where I live, admiring the basketball uniforms that proclaim various teams. They will continue to be there, like an indictment, like an accusing finger, like a question hanging in the air demanding an answer.
Like eyes that haunt. Like eyes that bind."
from an article written by conrado de quiros published on the philippine daily inquirer: http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20091222-243461/Eyes
this is a piece i wish i had written, or at least something like it. it captures what i feel perfectly. i've long since maintained my stance not to give to beggars, especially street children. i thought (and still think) that giving would only encourage them to stay on the streets and beg. and i stuck to that logic, no matter how queasy it felt.
but then this boy came, dragging with him an old woman who might (or might not) be his grandmother. it was raining that afternoon, and i was comfortably seated in a taxi on my way to the mall. then he came knocking on my window. instinctively, i took out my camera to take a shot. but as i adjusted my lens to compose the picture, i made the mistake: through my camera's viewfinder, i looked him in the eye.
and in that instant, the notion i've long since held, the neat formula that i was convinced i'd completely figured out, just melted away. it may have added up correctly, but felt humongously wrong.
i felt my hand slowly reaching for my wallet, but the traffic light had just turned green. the driver didn't seem to notice what was going on, and stepped on the gas. the little boy and the old woman stepped back to the sidewalk, and then they were gone.
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another repost from my multiply page. photo taken near the intersection of cardinal rosales ave. and juan luna st., cebu city, november 2009.
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