Starfish Lost

Sorry I’ve been away for a while. I’ve been trying to concentrate on my professional writing and blog.

But I’m back now.

It’s funny how relationships go up and down. One minute, you’re at eachother’s throats day in, day out, and you can’t see it ever coming to an end unless the relationship does. And the next minute, there you are, blissfully in love again. It’s not that you ever stopped being, but sometimes having a black cloud hanging over you means that it very much takes a backseat.

Or perhaps it happens the other way round. In love, then the fighting.

We all have rough patches. I suppose though, that if you are lucky enough to be able to get through it then you can be sure you have something strong, something worth holding onto. And if you have…well, then it kind of made the arguing worth it, because otherwise you wouldn’t have realised.

If, on the other hand, you don’t make it through, well - I won’t tell you not to be sad. It’s not that easy. But if you don’t make it through, then see it in a different way. You are free from the suffering and the pain that those arguments brought, and more than that, you are free to find someone who will treat you like the prince or princess you are.

“Why settle for the one who keeps you on your toes when you can wait for the one who will sweep you off your feet?”

Every cloud, and all that….

For anyone who’s interested, I came across this article today. It’s really relevant to my post on the matter. Although this was in the UK, it’s exactly the kind of thing I was talking about.    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308039/Beggar-boasts-27-560-income.html

This is something which has been troubling me intermittently since I’ve been living here in Brazil, and to this moment, I’m still unsure of my exact position on the issue.

Coming from an extremely developed country, I have always been of the belief that people who live on the streets or busk there must really have been through something to end up where they are. There is such a strong support network for people who might find themselves on the verge of, or even in, this situation. There are homeless shelters, there are drop in centres…all of these things have the potential to eliminate the catch 22 situation of not being able to get a job without a fixed address and vice versa.

And it’s because of these facilities that, despite my beliefs, I have always also been prone to lean the other way on occasion. In a nutshell, what I mean is, it’s something I’ve never been able to make up my mind about. One day, I’m sure I know how I feel about it, and the next, an exception to the rule gets me thinking.

So do they deserve our pity or not? Do they even want it?

Since I moved to Brazil, this has been an issue I have been forced to confront, because over here, you just can’t get away from it.

Initially, I was horrified to discover that it wasn’t uncommon for a young child to approach someone eating in a restaurant at night and ask for some money. These children could, on the odd occasion, be as young as five. Can you imagine sending your five year old out into the street begging? Wouldn’t you be terrified for his or her safety? Let’s not forget that Brazil is a country where gun crime is rife, and in many areas it’s commonplace to encounter wasted crack addicts wandering the streets. No, really - it is. It happens all the time in this city.

On further inspection, I realised that often, the mother or father of these kids would be hiding out a little further down the road. I still can’t get over how sick and wrong it is to use a child to gain sympathy and, more importantly for them, money. It’s frightening for the children, and the likelihood is they only get beaten when they don’t return home with enough money from the night.

Why don’t these parents get jobs so they can take care of their kids? Well, they might give you many reasons, including that they have no qualifications, or that they have too many kids to look after. Well, a) you don’t need any qualifications over here to work in a restaurant or clean peoples houses. No, they might not be the most enjoyable jobs in the world. But wouldn’t it be worth it so that you could take care of your kids instead of the other way round?? And as for having too many kids to take care of….well, sorry, but if you couldn’t afford to take care of your first child then why have you had five more??

I don’t feel any sympathy for parents with this mindset. It’s the self pitying, ‘pass the buck’ attitude. Why can’t people just take responsibility for their own actions!?

I must stress that another key point here is the fact that many of these parents are crack addicts themselves. Perhaps why they seem to have lost the ability to see reason.

 I would like to say, before I continue, that I have no intention here of pigeon-holing all addicts. I am well aware that there are exceptions to what I am saying here, and I am talking only of what goes on here in my city, to the best of my knowledge.

But speaking of them this is another huge problem with which I’m confronted every day.

My man and I work hard for the things we have got, and so do most of the other people in this city. So I find it really quite frustrating that, whenever we venture out in public, we are descended upon by an array of characters requesting food and money. Some of them are unwashed and high on drugs, so it’s clear that they really are homeless. But the worst specimen is the man who looks like any normal person, clean clothes, shaven - and who asks for money, saying that he cannot afford to eat.

Sometimes people try to ‘work’ for money - for example, by offering to take care of your car while you are shopping. Please bear in mind that this is done in broad daylight with plenty of people around, so if anyone was going to do over your car, these fellas themselves are the most likely candidates.

But for me, the reason these ‘normal’ looking guys are the worst is because they probably live a fairly normal life and have no real need for the money. What I’m saying is, they are probably not homeless at all - they are just too lazy to work, and have seen how easy it is to make money simply by begging on the streets. That is despicable behaviour on more than one level. They have no shame or pride in themselves. They are happy to be dishonest, and fool good, honest, hardworking citizens. But also, they are happy to cash in on what is a horrible reality for others, whether or not they are to blame for getting themselves there.

Going briefly back to those parents who use their kids to gain money, some final thoughts on this….

 - Do the parents not feel saddened by what they have become and want something better for their kids? It seems that they actually believe they themselves (the parents) are something worth aspiring to.

- As sad as it is (and this one took me a while to get used to), giving money to these kids is only teaching them that doing nothing can be profitable. Don’t we want them to realise that actually, they could have a better future than if they carry on doing this? We shouldn’t be showing them that they can get by like this, we should be showing them that they can’t, in order to ensure that they grow up with bigger plans and are not happy to simply carry on as their parents were. If we don’t, then these sweet young kids will only grow up to be the ones who threaten us at gunpoint in the street at night, which is also a common occurence here.

There’s a lot more going on here than initially meets the eye. It’s such a huge problem that sadly, I can’t imagine there ever being a real, all-encompassing solution.

I’d really love to hear some of your thoughts on this. Sometimes it’s hard to know if we’re being too harsh or if we’re being too soft, and it’s taken me a while to lean towards the tough love approach, but my eyes have really been opened about this subject over the last year or so.

Let me know what you think.