Near my office on my walk to work there is a shady promenade of cafés. Flanked by trees, a rarity in Albanian cities, parallel rows of tables and chairs pour down either side of the walkway, shaded by large umbrellas advertising Albanian beers. Alongside the footpaths, small arched bridges span patches of grass enclosed by tiny picket fences. Newly-planted roses bushes and pots full of petunia blooms flavor the air. Running, playing, and weaving in between it all are the children of the cafés' patrons. They don summer dresses and sandals, shorts and little polos, pigtails and mini faux-hawks.
It is late morning and I am standing on the path waiting to meet my colleagues for coffee. The weather is beautiful and I am enjoy people-watching. Standing several meters away, a boy of about 9 or 10 catches my eye. He is scanning the tables with a determined look of his face, already worn by sun, worry, and work. He darts away and reveals behind him a large plastic bag. Within seconds he returns with several empty juice cans, playfully crushes them under his feet, and crams them in his bag already brimming with the morning's loot. He dashes off again. This venture yields two coke cans garnered from a nearby table that has yet to be cleared by a server. As he stands by his bag waiting for more cans, two giggling young girls appear. They are kicking around a soccer ball which rolls toward the boy. He kicks it back and they share smiles. For a brief moment all three actively and consciously occupy the same space. They connect. For the boy though, there is no time to play. He has work to do.
My colleagues arrive and we find a table inside. It is hot and the sea breeze is elusive. We chat, drink macchiatos, and relax. Leaving the café 20 or 30 minutes later, I bumped into the boy, sans bag, on his way inside. Dark eyes wide and pleading, dirty feet shuffling along the floor, hand out. But he does not pay me any attention. Later that evening, I came back to the promenade to meet Kim for a drink. Sometime around the bottom of our pints, the boy appeared at our table. He had heard us speaking English and began to mime that he was hungry and wanted money for food. Kim said we spoke Albanian, and told him we had none for him. He smiled, said goodbye, and headed off.
Besides traveling, I have seen this meeting of the classes before. At my previous job, adults and children would come to tutor refugee youth. From the outskirts of the city's suburbs, wealthy moms would roll into our parking lot in shiny new SUVs. Two or three WASP-y tots would pour out of the vehicle and stand agape, taking in their new surroundings, i.e. "the ghetto". Dads in sleek black Mercedes would drop off teenage daughters clad in school uniforms. The patterns of their short skirts and their school crests revealing which prestigious private institution they attend. But inside the building, the kids mingled together and the barriers of wealth and privilege melted away.
But poverty in America and poverty in Albania are different; one is overt and one is more hidden. The youth at my previous job met because wealthy parents deliberately chose to expose their children. They transported them from havens of manicured lawns and security-monitored mini-mansions to the cracked-pavement sidewalks and weed-infested yards of the inner-city. In America, you can easily ignore the poor. Turn your head from the drunk man sleeping on the bench. Mock the sex worker standing outside the bar. Cross the street to avoid having to smell the old woman pushing a shopping cart. Tell yourself, "There are places for those people to get help." Or you can move to the suburbs where you don't even have to actively ignore the poor. There aren't such people there.
In Albania, it is harder to ignore poverty. It is pervasive and ever-present. You cannot tell yourself, "There are places for those people to get help." Albania has developed enough to support an elite class, but has not developed enough to create a system to shelter this elite from the poor. For that, you must emigrate to America or Western Europe, as many wealthy Albanians have done.
I know, how cliché for a Peace Corps volunteer to write a lament about poverty in her country of service. Especially to compare it back to poverty in America. But I think we all have an obligation to share our observations of the world. What disturbs me most is how easily and frequently we fail to see each other. And how often we mis-see each other. Fear, misunderstanding, guilt, racism, sexism, awkwardness, resentment, a sense of superiority, cultural bias, etc. all color our visions of one another. There is not much I understand about this world, but I do understand that we are all human. We all want and need the same things. I have no idea how to end poverty or bring peace and opportunity to all peoples of the world. But I do know that until we are willing to slow down and connect with each other, begin to actually see each other, we will never get there.
I encourage us to be kind to beggars, especially the children. Giving them money and buying their wares certainly only compounds the problem and is not the way to help. But there is no need for the level of aggression I have seen many Westerners show towards these children. A kind but firm "no" and ignoring their pleas and stares will inevitably cause them to move on. Rarely (though unfortunately sometimes) are these children truly aggressive or threatening. It hurts their business. Yelling at them to leave and pushing them away may alleviate some of our discomfort at having to acknowledge that such people and poverty exist, but it does nothing to help them. Despite how they look, what they are doing for money, or how they are acting, they are still children. Hardened and experienced children no doubt, but still children. It is not by their choice that they are working the streets. No matter how strongly the big sad eyes, dirty feet, and youth pull at our hearts, and no matter how much the awkward stares and demanding pleas irritate and distract us from our cappuccinos and conversations, they are still just children.
As for the young entrepreneur and the girls with the soccer ball, I hope their futures bring freedom and opportunity. Perhaps they will have another chance encounter in 10 or 15 years and their circumstances will have changed. Maybe not. Who knows? The only certain thing is that they will face significant challenges as Albania is full of obstacles for both. The girl will grow up in a patriarchal society in which women are still largely second class. The boy will grow up poor and minority in a country rife with prejudice and unemployment. But every country has its problems. And Albania is changing. People's minds are opening. And there is always hope.
