The Grasshopper and The Ant

Let me tell you a story! You’ve probably already heard it, but I’ll tell it again, this time with interjections colorfully placed by Javier Bardem’s character in the Spanish movie Mondays in the Sun, as he read it to a small child. He was meant to be babysitting, but the kid got a crash course in social ethics before bedtime as well:

The Grasshopper and the Ant

Once upon a time, there was a grasshopper and an ant. The ant was very hardworking and the grasshopper wasn't. He liked to dance and sing, while the ant went about his tasks. Time went by. The ant worked and worked all summer long. He saved all he could and when winter came, the grasshopper was dying of hunger and cold while the ant had everything. ("That ant is a real bastard!") The grasshopper knocked on the ant's door, and the ant said to him, "Grasshopper, Grasshopper, if you had worked as hard as I did, you wouldn't be hungry and cold now." And he didn't open the door! (“Who wrote this? Because this isn't how it is! That ant is a piece of shit and a speculator. And it doesn't say why some are born grasshoppers. Because if you are, you're fucked. And it doesn't say that here.”)

The movie revolves around a group of friends who lose their jobs in a Spanish shipyard and are left to float, unmoored and seeking meaning beyond their employment (or lack thereof). They have relationship issues, they drink, they laugh sardonically at what little they have. As the “Making Of” said, it’s not based on a true story. It’s based on a million.

The scene with the kid in the bedroom, who lay wide-eyed and silent at this strange, thick-bearded man who wanted to tell him what the world was really about, struck me more than any other. Everyone has seen world-weary men drinking their pennies away in some dark bar (I will never forget the tightness I felt in my throat, senior year of college, as my friends and I drank Olympia ironically at The Knarr Bar, quite possibly the world’s dirtiest watering hole, when I saw a shriveled, bent old man come in with a wad of grimy bills in one hand. He took a seat at the bar, which appeared to fit his backside perfectly as if it had been reserved for him, and ordered the first of many brews that would get him through the rest of the night. I didn’t want to look at him anymore, so strong was my heartbreak for the way our tongue-in-cheek night out was the equivalent of his lifestyle. His sadness, and then my own, was palpable). Everyone has seen men become shells of themselves as they drown in apathy, which Oscar Wilde accurately considers the worst illness man can contract.

But to watch this character, who was fiery and alive and appropriately bitter and unwilling to shut up about it, seemed an anomaly against the grey backdrop of his tired, tired friends. And the scene in the bedroom, in which he informed an innocent that not everyone would be sleeping in a warm bed that night, that not everyone is fortunate enough to be born an Ant and not a Grasshopper, meant he hadn’t given up. He was funny and honest and smart. He was mad as hell and the kid wasn’t going to be spared any of the ugly details of Adam Smith’s world order. It was one of the most refreshing things I have scene in terms of cinematic social commentary. But it also hurt my heart because the night before, as in so many nights these past few years, I had spent an evening with a Grasshopper, hearing about the same things firsthand.

Cynthia is a mom from Mexico, and I’ve gotten to know her while working with her sweet son Emilio this year at TT Minor. I arrived at their apartment, a lovely space on a tree-lined street in the Central District. Despite being one of the best-off Latino immigrants I have met in the past two years, she struggles, now specifically because her smart and potential-laden son cannot get a break when it comes to school. She had come from the year-end carnival that the school district threw for TT, which we agreed was a pathetic consolation prize in light of the fact that they have mostly been ignored and brushed aside for so long.

(Side note—the jury is still out for me on what I think about TT closing. I want to say that the school itself isn't the real issue, in light of the fact that kids everywhere are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to education. But then I remember what Paul Farmer said in Mountains Beyond Mountains: "If you focus on individual patients, you can't get sloppy." In other words, let's not generalize the bigger picture. Let's find the kid next door, see what's going on, and if it's not good, he probably isn't the only one.)

“Where is Emilio going to school next year?” I asked, then remembering that he would be bussing down to Leschi.
“But what is the closest school to you here?” I added.
“Stevens is just a few blocks away,” she said with a smirk. “But we applied for him, and he didn’t get in.”
“Why not? He’s a smart kid. I don’t understand the district’s methods at all.”
She looked at me sideways, half a laugh on her lips and a shrug lifting her shoulders slightly. “He’s a minority, so it makes it tougher. Only white kids go to Stevens.”

It’s hard for me to forget about my Emilios when I go home at night. It’s hard to watch the Grasshoppers (which is not necessarily a race thing-- although racial lines tend to blend into class lines, they aren’t an exact intersection) get a bad rap. Why did the Ant win over wintertime? Is it because he worked harder and did a better job than the Grasshopper? No! (and if someone tries to tell you that the Grasshopper danced and sang all summer, they probably have never met one in person) and why doesn’t anyone ask about what kind of parents the Grasshopper had, if he was a different color that was looked at a little suspiciously, or whether or not he had been able to access the same quality of education as the Ant had? “This book is bullshit,” Javier told the kid. He’s right. It’s not a science, this business of success. But it doesn’t have to be so uneven to get a fair shake at the beginning.

The movie comes to its emotional conclusion with a speech in a bar, after a (SPOILER ALERT!) friend of theirs dies from alcoholism. The remaining group is bickering about whether or not their dearly departed friend left anything tangible in his wake.

"He didn't say anything."

"He did, but he was hard to understand. Like... like Siamese twins. They're stuck together. If one falls, we all fall. And if one gets fucked, that's it. So do the others. Because we're the same thing. The same thing."

Ennui Wonder Why?

“I really loved the place, of course, but somehow knew it was not my city, not where I’d end up living for the rest of my life. There was something about Rome that didn’t belong to me, and I couldn’t quite figure out what it was…
-‘Don’t you know the secret to understanding a city and its people is to learn—what is the word of the street?’
Then he went on to explain… that every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people’s thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be—that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don’t really belong there.
‘What’s Rome’s word?’ I asked.
‘SEX,’ he announced… ‘What’s the word in New York City?’
I thought about this for a moment, then decided. ‘It’s a verb, of course. I think it’s ACHIEVE.’
(Which is subtly but significantly different from the word in Los Angeles, I believe, which is also a verb: SUCCEED. Later, I will share this whole theory with my Swedish friend Sofie, and she will offer her opinion that the word on the streets of Stockholm is CONFORM, which depresses both of us.)”
-Elizabeth Gilbert, eat, pray, love

Ever since LJ sent me that book for Christmas, I have been trying to figure out the WORD of every city I have spent significant time in, and Belfast's continues to elude me. But for the people in the north and west ends of the city, especially the teenagers, I’d say the word is something like BOREDOM. This manifests itself in a lot of ways.

Unemployment rates along the Crumlin Ward are ridiculously high. I think it’s something like 67% of people that are “economically inactive.” When I mentioned to Jack the fact that I didn’t think many of my neighbors really worked, once again I heard the phrase “dependency culture,” which even residents here will freely admit is status quo: if you can get it, take it.

This culture has developed from a number of factors, narrowed down to two main reasons that I can see. Firstly, both sides of the conflict feel they are owed something. Both feel like victims who deserve something to make up for the years of violence, discrimination, hatred, you name it, they feel like they received the brunt of it. Rare is the working class Catholic or Protestant who is willing to admit that just maybe, “our side” did as much damage as “their side.”

The second factor is the overwhelming willingness of the British government to support its Northern Irish citizens financially. This is visible in the long lines at the post office every Tuesday; comprised of people waiting to receive their weekly allowance from the government. The first week we moved into our house, I went across the street to meet my neighbors. The friendly young woman who I’d said hello to in passing was Claire, her boyfriend was Mark. Together they have four kids, ranging in age from 10 to a little over a year. “You don’t seem old enough to have a kid who’s almost ten,” I said, half-joking. “Ach, the babies started appearing out of nowhere!” Claire laughed, “Aye, I had Jordan when I was sixteen.” My automatic mental response was, “actually, it’s been scientifically proven that babies do not, in fact, appear from nowhere,” but I figured that wasn’t something good neighbors say they first time they meet someone. It wasn’t until later that night that I began to really think about the fact that not only is Claire not much older than me, but her story was not unusual. I have heard more than once from 15 year old girls, “I’m tired of living with my parents. I’m going to drop out of school and get pregnant. I want my own place.” The government is willing to support teenage mothers, single mothers, and a wide cross-section of people of the unemployed variety. No, they won’t be rich. But they won’t necessarily have to work, either, a huge draw.

In September, confronted with a society that approaches welfare from a completely different mindset than the one I have grown up with, I pondered the implications of the term “dependency culture.” It has now bewildered me for six months. I grew up middle class, and often I have felt the need to apologize for that and for the things that I was given because of that. As a result, though, I have also grown up hearing negative opinions toward welfare; discussion of system abuse and the interesting moral position that puts taxpayers into. As a resident of a country seeped in individualism, a country that is either too proud, too self-sufficient, or simply too opposed to the idea of being dependent on anyone but ourselves, the image of a culture where dependency is the norm; an accepted part of the mindset, is far from easy to understand. The Declaration of Independence takes on new meaning in light of what I see here: the American mindset has largely become a declaration of independence not only from Britain, but from asking for help, from admitting need, from accepting ‘handouts’ that you have not earned. It reveals itself in the Protestant work ethic that permeates our mentality, shows its face in the way we treat immigrants, becomes glaringly obvious in our health system (universal health care is one of the best things about the UK, and its absence in the States is extremely unfortunate).

Granted, all of this is blatant generalization. Much like many here incorrectly imagine every American to have a pool, a three-car garage, and a boat, there is no way to categorize an entire culture based on simplistic phrases, and those who milk the system are most likely matched by those who refuse to collect the money they are due. And in a lot of ways, I think the social services system here is much closer to the ideal than the US model, particularly in the area of health care (as I gratefully discovered during my hospital encounter). However, the disabling aspect of the welfare system is that it seems to create an unappealing (and, in the case of paramilitaries and idle teenagers, dangerous) mix of free time and lack of economic contribution, which has led to the general loss of identity and sense of purpose that communities really need to stay cohesive. It’s worrisome, and it’s hard to reverse.

Status quo is fine for a lot of people here. The dependency culture, at least in my area, tends to create a cycle of apathy. But for many, like my friend Deborah, it isn’t satisfying, but the way out of it seems insurmountable.
(I’d like to add here that writing about the social situation in North Belfast gets increasingly difficult as I envelope myself into the community here. It’s a catch 22—you have to be with the people to know what they think, and once you know are a part of their lives you feel guilty writing about them as if they’re hypothetical situations or case studies. In The White Man’s Burden, William Easterly rails against the shades of paternalism and condescension that color the Western world’s dealings with the Third World, but they are possible whenever an outsider enters a foreign situation and decides to analyze it. Forgive me if I ever come across as paternalistic or condescending, because I honestly do not feel that way and struggle to remove any feelings of superiority that creep their way in without my permission. Even using the word “their” bothers me, but I haven’t discovered another way of referring to my neighbors and friends here.)

Deborah is an overweight single mom who has attended Crumlin Road for about as long as she’s been a Christian, three years. She had Carson when she was 22. He’s now seven. She is outspoken, loud, painfully insecure, and extremely intelligent. I like Deborah a lot, because you always know where you stand with her, and she likes to debate. Deborah is another story of support from Housing Executive, and lives paycheck to paycheck (if government support can be classified as a paycheck). I once asked Deborah what she wanted to be doing in five years, ten years. She got kind of quiet, thought about it for a bit.

“I don’t want this, Laura. This is not what I wanted for myself, not how I pictured things going. I don’t want to spend my life just waiting around for the next few pence to come through. I want to be contributing something. I would like to work, but I don’t know what I could do.” In all fairness, the fact is that few opportunities exist to break the trap of a poor educational system and lack of employment prospects, but laziness plays a part as well.

The pervasive atmosphere of helpless boredom, dangerous lack of what I would consider normal social services and the fact that economic opportunities are found largely on the dole or through paramilitaries are a pretty brutal combination. But, much like the "word" for this place, ways to change the post-war pattern seem to be hovering just out of reach.

"The only horrible thing in the world is ennui."
-Oscar Wilde

Thunderbolts and the Belfast Blitz

“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” -E.B. White

That summarizes my first week in Belfast perfectly. We’ve gone out a couple times, danced a ton (to the point of sustaining my first war wound- a swollen knee- after dancing into a stage), and really enjoyed downtown nightlife, but also seen what a challenge my life will be this year. I wish there were an easy way to find that balance of improving things and enjoying them.
As far as the quick rundown goes, I started work the morning after I landed and have been surrounded by dozens of six year olds since then, doing the Crumlin Road day camp (interesting fact: Crumlin Road was bombed by Hitler in the Belfast Blitz of 1941 and the church was rebuilt after having stood there for about 100 years) and this week we're popping over to Woodvale to see our favorites from Deputation. We are living at the Drennans because the house that Peter and I are moving in to has no fridge and no standards of cleanliness…but we’ve gone in with bleach and boiling water, so don’t worry… you guys should still come visit! There’s a guest room! Malia has been having a field day taking video of the place and there will be some serious before and after shots that I’ll post when I’m all done “girlying the place up.”
Last night Malia and I made dinner for the Drennans and sat out in the twilight drinking wine and talking before they got home. I’ve spent a lot of time meeting tons of people in the past week, and each of them has a perspective on the community and the church, the demographics and the teenagers I’ll be working with. Honestly I felt like I had hit an early dead-end, because I kept getting questioned at every turn. At the bars, guys ask, “WHY would you be living in Ballysillan?” And even the Crumlin Road people are warning me, “Wait till mid-year, we’ll see how positive your outlook is by then.” I knew what I had gotten myself into before I stepped onto the plane, but it’s made me seriously question myself.
Just to give an idea of the neighborhood and community I am living in, I thought I’d include an excerpt from some of the reports Jack gave me, because they bring me to my knees in how heartbroken I am for this area and how monumental the task of bringing light to this area truly is:
“Over the years the area has become synonymous with deprivation and hopelessness… 92% of births are to unmarried mothers, 64% of people are economically inactive, only 2% have a degree.” Community complaints include the fact that the Housing Executive (basically the branch that runs placement and construction of the projects, like my neighborhood) dumps “undesirable/problem families” consistently into this area, it is ignored by politicians, drugs run rampant and are propagated by the paramilitaries even more in this economically depressed area, which also perpetuates crime. The youth have no incentive to do well in school because there are no jobs to be had, so it is much easier for the girls to get pregnant at 16 and live off of the state for the rest of their lives rather than struggle to make their own living. With nearly ¾ of the community living on the dole, boredom appears to rule and any sense of purpose or meaning is completely missing here. Even tonight, as we drove home at around ten, people were wandering the streets aimlessly, we passed a sign on fire, kids on their bikes. All looking for something to do, something to be a part of, something that is painfully lacking.
I don’t want to be trite, and I don’t want to be presumptuous. I wonder what makes me think I can prance into a community that is one of the most depressed, psychologically and economically, in Northern Ireland with the supposed purpose of bringing hope here. It is easy for me to talk about hope: when I go home, I have options. I probably have more education ahead of me, jobs that capture my interest, nice housing. A lot of these kids can’t see past their few blocks. Who am I to tell them, guys, you can do better than this! What do I know about growing up in a place where college is never mentioned, where boredom rules, where paramilitaries run the show because they are the only groups that give people a sense of worth, a sense of purpose, and activities to occupy their time? But then I thought back to high school, when I got to spend time with families in Mexico who were overflowing with love and generosity despite abject poverty, and how I was struck by the humble and heavy reliance on family connections and their faith, which allowed them to see past their current situation and focus on the long-term. I still think that economic viability is strongly connected with identity, but I am learning to separate the two, and my memories of Ensenada have really helped me with that.
Yesterday also got me thinking about my own motives. It is one thing to live in the rough area for a one year stint. Malia and I thought, if Christ were wandering around Northern Ireland today, he’d be living in Ballysillan and hanging out with the people no one else wanted to be with. But how brave would we be to humble ourselves at home, in our own element? Would Christ be living at Greenlake, or would he put himself on Aurora or the South Side? I would never dream of voluntarily moving to one of those places, but somehow when it’s not your real life, it’s easier.
I am reading Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton, and he mentions Joan of Arc, saying “She chose a path, and went down it like a thunderbolt… She was a perfectly practical person who did something, while they are wild spectators who do nothing… She and her faith had perhaps some secret of moral unity and utility that has been lost.” Sometimes I think I’m further behind on that idea than anyone. I have a long way to go with learning discipline, learning about a more pure love, and uncovering a lot of my own pride.