Tangible and Now

Monday, March 16, 2009
Lockwood's Dinner Table (Johannesburg, South Africa)
Just After Midnight

"More than 3,300 people have died from the worst outbreak of cholera
in Zimbabwe's history, which has infected nearly 66,000 people,"
BBC.com.

I can only process so much by the light of the lap top monitor,
sitting isolated in a coffee shop, or at my office desk, or in my room
before I retire into my bed, another day to tally off. This limitation
is something that I have been pondering these last three weeks or so
as the metallic light would reflect in my eyes, reading BBC.com –
daily ritual – watching all the numbers compile.

Over 60,000 Zimbabweans diagnosed with cholera. 50% of the country on
international food aid. 11% of the population has the HIV virus (more
accurate number would be 25%), a big loud reminder of a country in
tumult. For a moment I would be astonished, reading these numbers, as
they would proliferate upward into the absurd sky. And I would let
that moment astound me for a beat or two, and then it would subside in
that artful way these moments tend to do, as someone calls out my
name, or the cell phone rings with Brian on the other line to make me
laugh, or I click the back button on the webpage to return to see what
is new with the Mets.

As the moment of astonishment inevitably subsides, the rest of my day
could begin, the moment left to evolve into simple numbers. These
numbers to be forgotten, or inaccurately manipulated, or recited to a
curious acquaintance when they ask "so why are you going?"

Yet, these last two weeks these numbers have served to become less and
less sufficient of a response. Even though this trip has been planned
for months, I think I have concluded two things these past two weeks.

I'm not here to save the lives of the 60,000 of cholera dispossessed,
or get the countless people dying from AIDS some elusive sustainable
medication, or fix the debilitating astronomically inflated economy,
or remove the insane dictator from his high omnipotent chair where he
passes down judgment, tormenting his own people. So instead of these
unattainable numbers, and these unrealistic ideas, it should be about
the smaller numbers.

I'm unable to heal the cholera patient, but maybe I can drive him
somewhere as he hugs the endless road walking hundreds of kilometers.
Or I can sit with an AIDS patient, sit next to her, with her, holding
her hand, laying next to her all day, a white stranger with hope in
his eyes. Or sit with my friend Fibion, the sun descending on another
day where three of his friends or townsfolk have passed, walk with him
to his next funeral service, tell him how much I think about him, show
him how much I care about him. A hug maybe, or a ride, or maybe a
topping off of a beleaguered petrol tank, a smile even, or a surprise
delivery of cookies.

I don't really know. But maybe the number should be smaller and no
longer get overwhelmed with the inane immensity.

And I'm not sure if I am anxious or nervous, excited or scared. My
moment of astonishment will instead not be by the light of monitor but
a quick reality dressed in front of me. Both tangible and now, unable
to fade away into the disorder of the day, instead, it will be the
day. These past two weeks I have vacillated, wanting to see it, scared
to see it, the it being the tremendous amount of poverty, the extreme
displacement, the utter decrepitude, the impoverishment that the big
numbers do not share, the dirt and bug infested bodies, the holes in
the skin, the terrified eyes infiltrated with black dust turning gray.

To make sense of these numbers that I read about everyday as my moment
of astonishment turns into another moment of astonishment and then
another and then maybe I will understand just a little bit more. It
won't subside with a phone call it will play over and over on my
inside eye lids when I close my eyes that night. Drifting away, trying
to sleep with the signs and smells of that pain still in my face.
Hoping that during that day when I lay next to her I was some abstract
manifestation of hope. Their moment of astonishment, for a beat or
two, until reality wins shuffling this astonishment off, the moment
then gone.