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EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK:
Seeing Poverty Brings An Epiphany
I was feeling comfortable about losing my interest of the dark
and profane. Besides, I could no longer burn the candle at both
ends as I had been these past few months, so I cut back on my
drinking and stepped up on my sleeping, -- a little. Overall I
decidedly was now more on an even keel.
One weekend, I
decided to go well beyond the main strip where most of the
upscale fornication took place, to take a tour of the fringes of
Juarez, without the veil of alcohol and darkness of night
blinding my senses.
As I toured the
fringe outlands of Juarez, the memory of the conversation with
Craig was on the forefront of my mind. What he had said about
the women of Juarez hooking for the sake of economic survival.
As I explored
the fringes, I saw the people in Juarez exist in a level of
abject poverty far worse than what I experienced as a kid in
North Carolina. Worse even than what I had read about in the
Appalachians back in the States. Many of the hovels I saw that
day were barely more than a tumble of rubble, with walls that
were caved in, bits of tattered tarp covering the holes, windows
broken, rusty corrugated tin for roofs on some of the numerous
shacks.
I saw dirty
kids play with savage innocence along side of raw sewage in
which floated bloated decaying bodies of animals festering,
marinating in the raw relentless Mexican sun. As I watched,
another pack of kids materialized behind me, begging for
attention and commerce. I inquired for a restaurant or a food
stand.
A plucky kid,
dark, dirty, with shining black eyes and very white teeth took
my hand and led me a block over to a street vendor, selling
dog-meat laced burritos. The burrito was good and as I wolfed it
down, I visualized a poor Mexican family sitting down to some
holiday dinner and instead of turkey or ham I could see a dog
centered on their table, dressed, basted with cherries in the
eye-sockets and an apple in the mouth.
The bold kid
tucked at my sleeve, dragging me out of my morbid reverie. In
broken English he asked me how I liked the dog meat burrito.
“Mucho gusto, muy bien, gracias, little man”, I
replied.
As I looked all
around at the hovels, the children, the adults, it was apparent
that the majority of children looked curious and underfed, a few
adults glowered at me with malevolent animal resentment; mostly
however, the majority of adults were vacant eyed, with a look
that no one was home, that they had checked out years ago to
avoid total insanity.
Scattered
about, these outlands of Juarez were myriad men… defeated, drunk
or otherwise fuckup, and sleeping on hard-pack dirt in the
shaded alleys. Images of pathetic souls with festering and wet
skin diseases mottled about their bodies strike my appalled eyes
with impunity. Among them are people with eyes that looked like
milky-white tough skinned grapes, screwed in their eye sockets,
sightless and unblinking.
In the raw
pitiless daylight, un-insulated from alcohol, darkness, and the
luxury of first world cinematic induced romance, I sensed the
sharp rotten reek of deprivation. I was confronted with the
harsh painful reality of disease, poverty, degradation,
invincible impotence and mind numbing hopelessness.
I saw that
these people did not even have the benefit of the woodlands,
streams, beaches or swamps from which my brother and I had
foraged for food.
It had been
tough for my mother, but how much tougher it was for the Faye
Chimera’s of the third-world nations? I was overwhelmed, both by
the suffering and what I felt to be the senselessness of life.
The intense grief that was welling up within me caused my legs
to go unsteady and I had to find a place where I could sit.
I began to weep
uncontrollably at the terrible unfairness of the world. I cursed
God that he could create a world that would allow the suffering
of innocent women and children.
“You fucker,
you evil fucker!” I shook my fist up at the sky as if God would
take notice of my anger, my sense of betrayal.
I felt like an insignificant insect.
I felt
embarrassed when I noticed that the people around me were
curious and more than a little disturbed by my emotional
outburst and it was the realization of their hardness and their
callousness for their own plight that made me weep even harder
and harder and harder, and it felt as if my tears would never
end.
I keep weeping,
over and over and over again – until finally my tears were
spent. I don’t know how long I cried and I wondered if I would
ever be cleansed of my grief. I felt like an empty shell that
would never feel full again.
It was then I
swore that some day, I didn’t know when, it would become my
mission to help reduce the level of suffering in the world.
I suppose it is
what many of us do when we feel another’s pain, or feel guilt
for having more than others. In my situation, it was the guilt
one feels when face to face with the fact he has intentionally
or unintentionally capitalized on and exploited another person’s
misfortune or weakness.
I felt shame at
the thought of the many times I had finagled “bargain” rates
and, worse, accepted the largess from many of the women who saw
something in me worth investing in. It didn’t matter whether it
was as Craig said, “Even whores need love,” or even a
hooker’s honest impersonal Machiavellian intent to better her
lot in life by trying to “snag a GI.”
I realized then
that most of us young men had the misconception that the lives
that these women lived were by their own choice. Until that day,
I did not arrive at the full realization that the main
aphrodisiacs that drove these women to prostitution were poverty
and hunger.
“There is no coming
to consciousness without pain.”-----Carl Jung
“Greater imagination
and intelligence brings greater fear.” --- Hannibal Lector
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MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
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(JUDGMENT DAY)
THE MARINES: GOD'S CHOSEN
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NEO TEACHES ME THE ART OF WAR
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ZEN & THE BIOLOGY OF
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Phenomena
ZEN & THE ART OF KINESIOLOGY:
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ZEN & YOUR ENERGY SYSTEMS
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HOMEPAGE TO ADVENTURES IN MARINE BIOLOGY
HOMEPAGE |
