Recycling Man

There are times when my heart gets tugged, but I must admit that it comes much too infrequently. After living here for 18 months, it's amazing how the things that used to send a jolt up my spine have now become everyday.

From the short four-block walk from my house to our church I see a lot: homeless people sleeping on cardboard boxes, a shirtless prostitute on the corner, a blind woman shaking a can begging for money, fathers who sell 10-20 avacados a day for a living. I know their faces, some of their names and certainly their "spots" where they spend their time each day... and shockingly, for a girl who spent the first 27 years of her life in the suburbs, it has become somewhat normal to me now.

Earlier this week, however, my heart was tugged again like the first time I came to the DR.

It was early in the morning and Mark/I were on our usual drive to work in our small SUV. In the driver's seat, I was swerving through what has also become "normal" driving and came up upon a busy intersection. Mark was flipping through the radio stations and we were talking about something random as usual, when I saw the recycling man.

There are a few people around the city who push large wooden carts through the streets and go through the garbage looking for glass bottles and plastic clorox containers. It is certainly not a city-mandated job, but rather an attempt to make some money by going through other people's things. I know that there is no such thing as "clean trash" but I would like to think that if it existed, it would be in the United States. The trash here just reaks and is not picked up on a certain schedule or set frequency.

Anyway, I looked across the street at the recycling man going through a junky trash can and then saw the large oversized Ford Expedition hit his wooden cart and knock it over, with all of his bottles crashing down and into the busy horn-blaring noisy street. I watched as the SUV sped up through the intersection without even noticing the cart or the bottles or the face of the recycling man. I forgot that I was even at the wheel for a second.

I'm no saint, and I will not pretend to be one, but it just broke my heart to watch the recycling man lean over to pick up broken bottles and see the pain in his face. It's easy to imagine that this same trial has happened over and over again in his life, and all he's trying to do is make a little money for his family because he can't get a job.

I sometimes feel like for the people who have the hardest lot in life, it just keeps on getting harder... the poor just keep on being poor... and the rich just drive on by in their new SUV and don't even notice how unfair and hurtful they are being. I hope that although I do indeed drive an SUV, I am more fully aware of my actions and how they are affecting our world.