Not specifically with the people or poverty around me, but rather the way we see the people and poverty around us. The "we" I'm talking about is the outsiders, the compassionate Western poverty-fighters who are trying to help out in the world. In our crusade to aid the needy, clothe the naked, and civilize the non-Christian heathens, I think we sometimes give in to our dramatic sensations and miss what is really going on here. And that is a dangerous thing to do.
Yesterday I needed to get some pictures of people during the feeding distribution to promote our Feed My Starving Children Mobile Pack event coming up in March (which is going to be a big event and really fun! Message me for more info!). I got some volunteers, organized them in a group, and raised my camera.
A young man from the community was standing behind me, giving my subjects some modeling advice.
"You're poor! Don't laugh. Be poor!" He suggested to them. Immediately every smile was wiped from their faces and they all stood there, waiting for me to capture their sudden melancholy.
For a kid who has never been to school for marketing, he sure knows what the people want, right? Don't ever tell me people in developing countries aren't intelligent.
We want to see dirty faces, ragged clothes, and sullen eyes. Only then will we open our wallets and send our contribution to the most desperate places on earth.
Why do we do that? Do we think that if a child is smiling they must not be truly in need? Do we think impoverished people sit around every day feeling sorry for themselves and practicing their camera-ready frown? The thing is, sad pictures invoke pity. Happy pictures are great, but I can take happy pictures of my cousins and get the same feeling inside, right? These people don't need or deserve your pity; they deserve respect.
Some people might be reading this and thinking, "This is crazy. I certainly don't feel this way." But clearly many people do, because even the people we are photographing understand that happy faces may get you into somebody's profile picture, but sad faces get you stuff.
I have a dear friend in another developing country who shared this story with me: When she and her siblings were kids, they heard about some people coming into their community and picking families to be a part of a new sponsorship program. Their oldest brother wanted to get them into the program, but he knew to have a better chance he would have to help them out a little bit. He told all of them to put on their worst clothes and make themselves look dirty (their mom was out of the house that day-she was furious with them when she discovered what they had done. Moms are so universal.). When the people came around with their cameras all the children put on their best "poor" face. Guess who was put into the sponsorship program? (And guess who got into big trouble when their mom received the photo a few months later of her children from that day?)
Don't get me wrong-my friend's family could have honestly used some help, and I'm sure this program did give them some great assistance. But why do we only respond to the pain of poverty, while we totally ignore the other side of it? The second we accept these images as the whole truth we deny people the dignity of being a whole human, capable of feeling joy as well as pain, capable of laughter as well as tears. Maybe this is a subconscious thing we do, but it's an attitude and idea that we need to destroy.
Poverty is hard but it shouldn't define people. If we turn our gaze to developing countries or impoverished areas and the people's poverty is the most remarkable thing about them, then we are sorely missing out on a group of people who have remarkable traits of God, just waiting to be recognized.
But that's just it-we don't see them because we aren't looking for them. We take one look at them and label them: POOR. HARD LIFE. HELPLESS. We think the best toy they will have is the one we give them. We think the time that we make them laugh and smile is the only time they will smile that day.
It's time to look beyond the camera lens and look at people in three-dimension. One of my sweet little neighbors has a favorite toy; I have seen him playing with it for literally hours every day, usually by himself, but contented as can be. We have played with jump ropes, hula-hoops, and soccer balls, but they are nothing compared to this. I have watched him outside, dressed in nothing but underwear covered in dirt from some serious playing, waving around a long stick with a ripped up grocery bag tied to it. Even this morning as I was thinking about this blog here comes my boy, whacking the tree in my front yard with his stick because the grocery bag got caught in the branches.
Now if I managed to snap a picture of this boy, stick in hand, when he happened to not be smiling, what would you think? "Oh, that poor dear boy doesn't even have clothes to wear or anything to play with but some trash." Is that truth? The truth is my neighbors don't have as many clothes as I do or as many toys as most kids in developed countries like the U.S. have. But the other truth, the more important truth, is that my neighbor doesn't wear clothes because he doesn't want to wear clothes, and he plays with a stick and a grocery bag because that's what he likes to play with. And you haven't seen true joy until you've seen a boy with his ripped up grocery bag.
Please don't think I'm condemning our society for wanting to help or for taking pictures of poor people. I just want us to start seeing these people as they are-beautiful, dignified creations of God. Let's stop helping people because we think their lives are pathetic, and start helping people because we are all broken people under one God who need a hand up every now and then.
After that young man behind me told everyone to "look poor" and to "stop laughing" I quickly jumped in and said "No, it's ok, smile!" Here are some of the faces I captured in my two-minute photo-shoot. Please take a minute to enjoy these pictures for what they show: real people who have many reasons to smile, just like you and me.
When we change how we see the world, that's when we can truly change it.
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