The Power of Proximity
Lispa walks into a room like a Maya Angelou poem. Hips swaying, eyes sparkling, large smooth arms picking up scattered toys and books without ever breaking her stride. She repeats my daughters’ names with her lilting Kenyan accent, over and over, her motherly mantra. There’s a quiet dignity to Lispa’s manner. A refusal to hurry. A steady rhythm that beats somewhere below the surface as she walks to the clothesline in her worn blue flip-flops or bends at the waist to scrub the floor.
Lispa works for me. She does my housework, bakes my bread, and occasionally watches my girls when I’m tired or need to run a quick errand. I’ve come to accept the bizarre reality of having a houseworker while I live in Kenya. I make a concerted effort to be a fair employer, to give her a generous wage, to inquire about her family and thank her for her help. But the truth is that when Lispa enters my house each morning, she brings with her an undeniable discomfort. Because although I lead a modest life by any North American standard - no large appliances, no screens on my windows, intermittent power and water - when Lispa walks in the room, I’m rich. Filthy rich.
I tend to bemoan my cramped kitchen and complain when the power goes out while I’m on the computer. I scroll through websites and long for high-tech toys for my 4 month old daughter. I rifle through my t-shirt drawer in despair, dreaming of the convenience of a Canadian shopping mall.
And then Lispa walks in. Lispa, who lives in a one room house with her husband and 3 children. Who irons her two dresses with meticulous care. Who can barely cram all my daughters’ toys into our large toy basket while her children play soccer with a ball of knotted rags.
Maybe there’s an immorality to having someone who is so poor enter right into the middle of all my wealth. But maybe there’s also value in the juxtaposition - a refining that comes with the discomfort. Because if Lispa didn’t work for me, the reality would be the same. I’d still be way too rich. And she’d still be somewhere in a tiny crowded room, way too poor. When I lived in my funky downtown apartment in Canada, washing my own floors and doing my own laundry in the basement laundromat, there were still millions of Lispas in the world trying to scrape by one more day - sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. The difference wasn’t in the disparity, just the proximity.
Whenever Lispa stands in front of my full pantry and asks quietly if I might be able to spare some extra sugar for her family, whenever I drive by the devastating Kiberra slum on a family outing to the giraffe park, whenever I slow down my Subaru for an elderly woman carrying a load of firewood on her back, I remember that things are not right. That ours is a broken and unjust world, and that I do not have the luxury of complacency.
I wonder how I’ll maintain that awareness when I do move back to North America some day. I know all too well how easy it is to exist in a comfortable middle class bubble. If I plan my route through the city carefully, I could probably go weeks without even seeing people poorer than me, let alone actually having a relationship with them. And I think there’s an immorality to that as well, or at least a grave danger. Because those of us who are rich cannot afford to be too comfortable with our wealth - especially those of us who claim to be “little Christs”. I know Jesus had encounters with those in circles of wealth and comfort, but most of the time, he chose to seek out the sick and poor and outcasts. So maybe there’s moral value in proximity with the poor. Maybe Lispa is helping me develop the spiritual discipline of discomfort.
Posted on December 15, 2008 12:00 AM
Comments
Yes!! I live in Mozambique and experience the same thing when my houseworker comes over (and I don't even tell anyone in the States I have one because they too will think I'm absurdly wealthy or that I'm being too colonialist). I feel the same discomfort when my Mozambican friends come to visit or when I tell local colleagues that I'm traveling to neighboring countries for Christmas when they haven't seen family in the neighboring province in years. I battle with this daily. And I really like your idea of "developing the spiritual discipline of discomfort." Thank you for writing from an African context!
Posted by: Jen | December 15, 2008 2:54 AM
Wow, I really appreciated this, Kristen. Thanks for writing this.
Posted by: Austin Carty | December 15, 2008 6:04 AM
"spiritual discipline of discomfort"
Perhaps a simpler term might be "seeing injustice as God sees it".
Sometimes we see something and never recover. This can be a blessing.
May "normal" never be good enough for us.
Our comforts can too easily keep us from the fullest God has for us.
God's story in each one of us is just beginning...
Posted by: Morf | December 17, 2008 5:28 PM
My aunt found a letter written by my great uncle the other day. It told of his life in Montana in the great depression with his mother and 8 siblings. His father (my great grandfather) was killed by an amateur hunter who mistook him for a deer while my grandmother (kid #9) was still 4 months from birth.
9 kids, single mother in the depression in small-town Montana. Stories like that and like yours are much on my mind this week.
But what to do? Give my money to the africans and my time to the single mothers until i am poor and weary too? What if i can't do that joyfully? (note that i'm trying not to confuse happy and joyful) I don't think that God wants us to be poor and weary or to be rich and feel guilty about it. There must be another way...
Posted by: Nathan Bubna | December 18, 2008 12:51 PM
Or maybe you should give her half your stuff. Or maybe pay a wage that is more than fair. Or maybe don't wait for her to ask for food.
Posted by: Simplify Simplify | December 19, 2008 9:24 AM
Kirsten - thank you for this piece and for detailing the struggle. My sister lives in Nairobi and has the same struggle you have. And Americans don't seem to understand what she's talking about when she mentions that she has "house help." Does she need the help? Not really. But is she greatly contributing to the local economy and helping to put food on the table for 3 families? Yes yes yes.
She once told me that Kenyans would seriously disapprove of an ex-pat not hiring help. It is such a strong part of their culture - even her househelp (who live in Kibera) hire help for THEIR houses.
To the person who suggests that they pay a wage that is more than fair or to give away half of your stuff - that doesn't really release any of the tensions that Kirsten lays out for us. Doing those things would not be culturally acceptable and would probably create more problems instead.
Learning how to live in a new culture and not feel "guilt" about what you have is a very tough thing indeed. But you are living out the way of Jesus IN ADDITION to living abroad. The rest of us have to live out the way of Jesus surrounded by creature comforts.
I'm not sure who has the greater struggle in the end.
I look forward to more of your pieces, Kirsten.
Posted by: diane nienhuis | December 20, 2008 7:49 AM
Kirsten,
Beautifully articulated. I worked with your sister at Rosslyn. She is a dear friend...I have memories of valuable, soul-searching conversations and I see it runs in your family. :) Thank you for taking the time to struggle with this issue in writing.
Posted by: Heather S | December 21, 2008 8:22 AM
Thanks for this article. I am a young American missionary living in the Dominican Republic. I too have a local woman come and clean my house which often makes me feel a little uncomfortable as I lounge on the couch while she is mopping the floors.
Thanks for your perspective. You echoed many of my own feelings, but it was nice to see someone else struggling and learning as I do.
Posted by: Katie L | January 19, 2009 1:48 PM