I sat at the corner burger place in Addis eating a burger.
The place is close to where I live and super cheap, the ideal pit stop from my
long day. It is also frequented as the corner where sex workers stand. When I
arrived for a quick bite, no one was there and I was in the middle of reading a
novel and nibbling at my burger. A boy, about 10, approaches me asking if I
wanted to buy any of his boxed tissues. He wore worn out khakis, a red striped
shirt and carried out a haggard grain sack turned bag. He has soft features and
long lashes that make him appear with both childlike gaiety and transforming
into an adolescent. I politely decline on the tissues, perfectly content with
using toilet paper as my all purpose tissue. The boy sits on the muddy concrete
in the corner. He doesn’t yet have a name in my world but I’ve seen too many
like him. These kids that grow up far before they are ready and are sent to
shine shoes, sell trinkets, or worse, beg for money and trained to incite pity
and pleading. I’d always been internally torn, wanting to help these kids and
their mothers but also realizing that children begging and succeeding in
obtaining money only further perpetuates the vicious cycle. Also, it’s not
entirely certain that the money collected would benefit the kids themselves,
particularly if there is a sort of child-begging pimp or parents that are
addicts involved.
So I reconciled a long time ago in my life to buy these children
food if possible. And also to get to know them. The thing I love most about
working with children is their ability to dream unrestrained and they are not
yet buckled to society and life’s expectations. Children that are beggars are
no different in that regard, but they also carry a heavy burden on their
shoulders that kids shouldn’t have to carry. When I’ve invited kids out to
lunch, I ask the question that I ask of all people of all ages and from all
backgrounds, “what is your dream job?” One boy in Dar-es-Salaam desired to be a
boat captain, a Moroccan child wanted to work in a mosque, another boy in
Port-au-Prince dreamt of becoming a construction engineer. I feel that a
person’s vision and their dreams reveals so much about them and their core.
Each time I ask a begging child this question, it both inspires and crushes me.
I love their ability to dream beyond their circumstance and yet aware that poverty
will severely limit nearly every opportunity in their lives. I suppose I do
this as my personal method of giving without pity but I hope to give with
seeing this individual as a whole person with their own pain and hope and life
story.
The boy in Addis mumbles something after I decline on the
tissues and I ask if he would also like a hamburger. He nods and I beckon him
to sit next to me. He sits two chairs away, keeping his distance but complying.
As we wait for the burger to be grilled, a sex worker taking the first shift of
the night sits in the other direction one chair away from me. I ask the boy his
name and he replies in his perfected Amharic that sounds like a Spanish tongue
roll, “Brook.” My not-so-perfect firingi ears
asks him to repeat his name like three times. The sex worker chimes in and
annunciates every syllable for my slowness. Next I try to ask for his age in
English. He doesn’t understand and the sex worker chimes in again and
translates. She continues to translate my barrage of questions that is probably
annoying both the boy being interrogated and the translator. It starts to rain
and then pour in the chilly night, being rainy season in Addis, but our
conversations are becoming less awkward and forced. I take out my Amharic
Lonely Planet guide and ask if Brook likes music and reading. He replies yes to
the music and no to the latter. He does not have a house but does go to school.
He waves across the way and I look to see another boy, the same age as him
toting tissue boxes for sale. He nods when I ask if that is his friend. I show
him pictures of my friends and a view of the secluded LA wilderness that I call
home.
I also strike up a conversation with the sex worker. She
sips a macchiato as I learn that she is from Addis and curiously leans in when
I show Brook pictures from my phone. Her and I laugh about something that I
can’t quite recall. I realize that she too is a person with her hopes, dreams
and stories. People are quick to judge sex workers and objectify this
population both physically and morally, but they are human and it’s certainly
not my duty to lay prejudice on anyone. My lack of talent for hearing and
retaining names, however, leaves me at a loss of remembering her name
immediately after she tells me. Still, I’ve found that a common language exists
in humanity that does not have a name but is expressed in a smile, humor or
kind eyes. Her English is functional and we have simple exchanges but she
didn’t understand my question to Brook about his dream job until I explain it
in a few more different ways – making charade hand gestures and saying big,
adult, man, job, work, doctor, lawyer – and then it clicks and she asks him.
Brook wants to be a doctor, it may have also been suggested to him but hey,
that’s a great ambition regardless. I smile and give him a high five. I show
him a picture of me working with doctors – why? I have no idea except to signal
that they’re cool in my book. My words get translated when I tell him that I
think he is very smart. As my translator comrade gets a call to begin her night
of work, the hamburger finally arrives. Brook asks for it to be wrapped up to
go, presumably to share with others. The sex worker enters a car in the
darkness of the night. I shake Brook’s small hand and tell him, “goodbye Dr.
Brook.”
