Seeing through the Have Not Lens

During my first drive to Sao Paolo from the airport, I noticed a decaying roadside favela…a shantytown…full of shoeless children, raw sewage, crumbling walls and tin roofs. It was not the Brazil I stayed in…beautiful apartments and homes, amazing people, wonderful food, killer shoes. I was mesmerized as you rarely (if ever) see such have nots in close proximity to haves  in America. It made me feel uncomfortable and sad and helpless.

One of the people in the car was looking at the same space, and suddenly she sat up, pointed, and said “Olha! Que flor bonita!” which means roughly, “Look at the beautiful flower.”

I looked at where she was pointing and noticed, barely struggling through a crack in the road, a single, tiny, beautiful flower.

Two things struck me. First, that she picked out the one bright thing, and second, in all of the poverty and decay, that was the only thing she chose to see. Why? Because it was an exception?

I wondered at that moment what they saw looking back at us. Did they just see the watch I forgot to remove for the drive? Or did they see me…someone wondering about their lives and wishing I could do something big in life that could make their daily existence easier and safer…and ultimately all of us stronger.

I’ve gone back to that moment in time during all of the political hullabaloo of the past year.  The name calling, the insults, the hatred, the ugliness, the bricks through windows and the bewilderment I feel watching angry people degrade the very party best intentioned to help them. What really do they see? Is it real, or is it the exceptions highlighted through another lens I could never understand?

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