Yeyo, Me and You: Two Lessons for the New Year
When I was 20 years old I travelled to the Dominican Republic on a study abroad program. I lived in community with a small cohort of students, we studied history, Spanish, literature and on the weekends we each traveled to assigned service projects.
I was assigned to work in a small mountainous community called El Arroyo del Toro. Each weekend was the same — we started off in the city of Santiago hailing a motorcycle taxi cab to drive us to the base of the mountain. The motorcycles went up, but only so far. From where they stopped, we hiked up the mountain on rocky roads the color of setting plaster. They were dry, dusty or muddy, depending on the weather. We may stop at a small shack painted in peeling pastel colored paints to purchase a soda pop, still sold in glass bottles. But mostly, we trudged on up the mountain. Each student was assigned to a host family.
My family was the furthest down the rocky path. Homes were small, and built of rick rack, and may have a kitchen, a living space, and a bedroom. We quickly learned of the hospitality of the local families as they shared dry bread buns with us to dip in something like hot chocolate with cloves. I remember sitting on wooden chairs, in a tiny living space, eating tasteless bread and visiting with my family, while the rain pelted the corrugated rooftop above us. The atmosphere was warm and inviting and formal in spite of the building.
At night, I shared a bedroom with the daughter, Anyeli. She was a bright-eyed teen with big cheeks and a white smile who willingly shared her small space with me. I remember on one of the first nights, I woke in the night, and heard rustling at the base of the bed, in my limited Spanish, I asked what is was. She replied “ratones”, which in my mind’s eye, were rats! With better Spanish language ability later, I realized they were merely mice, but I spent a night imagining large rats rummaging through my college backpack, which lay on the ground just underneath me, eating the candy bar I had saved inside.
The family grew coffee, kept a pig in the yard alongside several chickens and roosters. The mother cooked in a small kitchen with a big pot over a fire. Showers were with a bucket of water and the bathroom, an outhouse. Dominos, were a popular past-time. Upon returning home, I remember visiting a friends house, and looking for the first time, with new eyes at all of the gadgets in the kitchen. Monga, the mother, managed to feed her family, with yams, and bread, and beans and rice. She managed through illnesses with hot cilantro tea “sick tea.” And almost no gadgets. It occurred to me that life was possible without so much. And reinforced in a new way the wealth I lived with, even though I always knew I had enough, I never imagined how much more, in many ways, I and my contemporaries had.
While I was there, my future husband was assigned a home with a family down the muddy path a ways. His family, was relatively wealthy in the community. And on one particular morning, they were to slaughter a pig. I remember much excitement about this as that pig would represent a meaty supply of dinners for the family and the community for some time. The meat was uncomfortably alive, before we ate it and the closeness to its life and death, real. The feeling amongst the “campesinos” was pure joy at this occasion.
Then, as a twenty-year-old, I joined the program with a mission to experience poverty firsthand, and I imagined, in my future that I would affect it somehow. I imagined that I would, become a part of the power circles of the world, and influence from the top.
Now, years later, I and my family sit comfortably in the middle class. I reflect on this as I recently listened to an interview with Richard V. Reeves, a fellow at the Brookings Institute, who has written a book entitled “Dream Hoarders.” He asks those of us in the upper earning brackets of society to consider our responsibility to society. Specifically he asks us to consider class based structures he believes that we are beginning to create (whilst he also points out that we live in a supposed class-less society.) He suggests that we are giving our own kids a boost in society, by taking advantage of such things as legacy benefits in college admissions processes, and by providing our children opportunities such as internships that others may not have an option for. This matters, he argues, because our society is predicated on the idea of equal opportunity, and our kids are getting invisible help from the start.
Years away from my direct experience with poverty, thinking about it hasn’t been front and center in my life. But, I began to reflect on Reeves’ thinking and to consider where my own children benefit from this. In fact, there are many ways they benefit from our socio-economic status and I’ll point specifically to the activities that my husband and I invest in for them outside of school. From soccer, to ballet, to figure-skating, piano, summer camps and classes, we invest in our children. We do this of course, out of love, and in supporting their innate interests, but, we are also getting them a leg up in their education, that, those in lower income-brackets may not have an opportunity for. Most of these are paid activities, some are activities they’ve earned through application processes. While there were no legacy benefits for them, my husband and I did notice the opportunities and encourage them to apply. Would another parent without my social network have been connected to opportunities for my children like I was, via my Facebook page? If that parent noticed the opportunity, would they have the flexibility in their work to transport their child to the opportunity weekly? Would they have transportation to do that?
I grew up in a family of public educators and my parents remain active in local community organizations which support the public schools. I recently talked with my dad about an effort in his community to fund activities fees for children so they have an opportunity to participate. He mentioned to me that he was an advocate for no activities fees, to waive any barrier for kids to participate.
Lession #1: Appreciate What We Have
The years now have distanced me from my twenty year old self and that experience living in poverty with that family in El Arroyo Del Toro. But, I think it is important to pause to remember that experience, now from the future. I’m not sure that I’ve achieved my aim to influence poverty as my twenty-year-old self imagined that I might. But, I learned important things from that experience, there were many things about that experience that taught me to appreciate simple things in life. While my host family lived in extreme poverty by any standard, I came to appreciate what they offered me, dominos by fire-light, warm milk on a cold, rainy night. I felt they appreciated what they had and it is a good lesson to consider what we have, even when we may feel like it isn’t much. I appreciate my Starbucks coffee, but if I had to compare, the drip coffee made through a sock on a wire that Yeyo and his family made for me, was better given the generosity it was shared with.
In his article “How Much Money Do You Need to be Happy, More Than Most People Are Making” Ben Schiller points out that “there is a point at which earning more money has decreasing returns,” (relative to the happiness it will bring) but later in the article also suggests that “it is difficult to pin down exactly.” As it turns out, humans are complicated and that same article points out that “Expectations and social comparisons are important. We’re very finely tuned social creatures, so those social comparisons occur in most human domains including, career, income, and the size of your house.” So even though, those of us in the upper middle-income classes tend to earn more than the “optimum salary for achieving fulfillment” in our culture of comparison, it is normal to consider who has more, and to lose sight of what we have. Those of us in the “upper middle class” may not view ourselves as “rich” after all there is the 1% to set our sights on. But, many of us have more, much more than we may realize compared to many others.
Lesson # 2: Look Ahead But Also Remember to Look Behind
This fall, my children and I participated in an event lead by a community-activist friend of ours to help refugee families re-settle into new homes after they were moved by the city from unlivable dwellings. She organized the collection and delivery of items for them. My three kids and I arrived to a community center full of wooden chairs and lamps, shelves and such that families had selected from the dusty church basement. Our friend organized it all and we were each assigned to a family for delivery. My kids and I loaded up the back of our Forester with two wooden chairs, a rug, a box of plates and some neosporin and a bag of tangerines. On a cold snowy day we arrived to make our deliveries. The new homes were upgrades for these families but what struck me, was how simple even these dwellings were. One was a small, drafty basement apartment with cold hard floors. And the other was a duplex, empty, with the exception of the items we were delivering. We rang the doorbell of one home and what I imagined to be the grandmother of the house, opened the door. She allowed me, and my trail of children in to deliver the items they had selected. She was tiny in stature and she smiled with a noticeably toothless grin that Lachlan, my son, later asked me about. As we were leaving, she movingly reached out to each of us to give us a big hug with a smile. As she couldn’t speak English, that hug and smile translated to a million thank yous.
While there is real value in looking ahead for what may motivate us, to achieve more, I think there is also real value in looking behind. This may mean taking more time to immerse ourselves in the lives of those who have less as I did as a student in college. It doesn’t need to be as extreme as hiking to the campos to live with a family, but it can be as simple as making a delivery of goods to a new refugee family in the community. Stepping outside our friend circles and areas of comfort can add perspective.
In 2018, Google noted that people searched for “good” things more than ever, “how to be a good citizen”, “a good listener” and even for “good news.” I think it is encouraging that so many humans are good -seeking. Here is to a year of lots of good-doing while we remember lessons from Yeyo’s family to me and now to you….1) Appreciate What We Have and; 2) Look Ahead but Also Remember to Look Behind.
Happy New Year.
— Shannon
