The Rugby People
My colleagues and I were talking about street people using rugby earlier this week, and I found myself paying more attention to them. It's not that I expect them to go berserk or try to kill people right in front of my eyes, but there's just something about tragedy that makes you want to watch it unfold until you just can't tear your eyes away. I've seen a lot of the Rugby People, most of them are young. I've seen the delirious happiness in their eyes as if they were watching the clouds part for them as they fly in the sky. Coincidentally, what I saw today took my breath away and replaced it with a hard dark lump I cannot dislodge from my throat.
I was with my sister helping her do research when we came upon a family seated in a less populated area of a certain university. There were four of them: the father, mother and two kids. The mother was cradling the baby in the crook of her left arm. In her right hand, she was holding a clear plastic bag and she kept sniffing it. When she wasn't sniffing it, she was laughing aloud and exclaiming her delight over the thousand things we could not see. The baby in her ams though was crying. Meanwhile, the father must've been already way high because he was rolling back and forth on the grass. The other kid, she must've been two or three, was picking up God-knows-what from the grass and eating it.
It felt painful to watch them. It was more painful though to walk away and to pretend we didn't see anything. Up to now, I still don't know what I should have done. Should I have informed the police? Gave them money? Bought them real food? The kids, at least? I don't know. How do I even approach them? I feel fake for calling myself a development worker and not knowing what to do. It also makes me feel a little sad because, how many of the things I'm doing at work is really helping this family and the thousands just like them? I feel utterly useless.
The rugby people really are just Hungry People. Hurt People. Tired and Hopeless People. Thing is, they are Our People and we don't know what to do. I can't see poverty ending in our lifetime. And honestly, I don't even think we really, truly know how to start.
I was with my sister helping her do research when we came upon a family seated in a less populated area of a certain university. There were four of them: the father, mother and two kids. The mother was cradling the baby in the crook of her left arm. In her right hand, she was holding a clear plastic bag and she kept sniffing it. When she wasn't sniffing it, she was laughing aloud and exclaiming her delight over the thousand things we could not see. The baby in her ams though was crying. Meanwhile, the father must've been already way high because he was rolling back and forth on the grass. The other kid, she must've been two or three, was picking up God-knows-what from the grass and eating it.
It felt painful to watch them. It was more painful though to walk away and to pretend we didn't see anything. Up to now, I still don't know what I should have done. Should I have informed the police? Gave them money? Bought them real food? The kids, at least? I don't know. How do I even approach them? I feel fake for calling myself a development worker and not knowing what to do. It also makes me feel a little sad because, how many of the things I'm doing at work is really helping this family and the thousands just like them? I feel utterly useless.
The rugby people really are just Hungry People. Hurt People. Tired and Hopeless People. Thing is, they are Our People and we don't know what to do. I can't see poverty ending in our lifetime. And honestly, I don't even think we really, truly know how to start.
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