Can YOU live without your phone?
Can YOU live without your phone?
(blatant clickbait)
Take a moment and imagine this scenario…
You’re homeless. You’re a black woman in an ethnically mixed neighborhood in which blacks still typically end up at the bottom of the totem pole. You’re exhausted from your situation — which includes taking classes (using your phone) that are designed by the city to help you land a job by the end of the year.
You position yourself near one of NYC’s public kiosks at which you can charge your phone. You plug in and wait. Try as you might, you can’t keep your eyes open and you fall asleep for no more than a few minutes. When you wake up, your phone is gone. Stolen.
How would you feel? What would you do?
This is what happened to F — the homeless Ethiopian woman I help — since I updated you about her. Last week, about half of her clothes were stolen. A couple of you came through with donations and I was able to get her some warm clothes and give her cash to pick out more outfits. Thank you!
But next, her phone was stolen. F thinks someone is watching her because she’s faced a couple of local (white male) storeowners complaining about her presence on “their” block. After all, only the phone was stolen. The charger was left behind. It might be an act designed to deter her rather than profit off selling the phone.
When I arrived the other day, F looked drained. “I’m done,” she told me. “I don’t wanna be here anymore.”
I asked for clarification. By “here,” did she mean Astoria or homelessness or…? She sighed, “I’m tired of it all and sometimes, I just want to be gone.”
I’ve been doing this work a long time. I know this can be a desperate, very serious cry for help. It also could be a vulnerable soul feeling comfortable enough with me to get some painful emotions off her chest.
“Do you think you might do something to make that happen?” I asked.
She smiled. “Nope, I love my daughter too much.”
“How much do you love yourself?” I asked.
She smiled more widely. “Enough to not hurt myself. I just need to vent.”
I told I’d be happy to listen and that’s what I did for a while.
Once I could see she was doing better, I gave her a restaurant gift card, some cash to help with getting an inexpensive phone, and a promise I’d be back the next day. We prayed together before I moved on.
When I next saw F, she was closer to her usual self. In fact, she was giving advice to a young man who lives near her panhandling spot. He’s a teacher and was struggling with the troubled kids in his class.
As I walked up to them, he went into the bagel shop so F and I could talk alone. He soon emerged with a meal for F as he sincerely repeated to her: “Thank you so much for listening.” His students and their families will have F to thank for the advice he got.
Meanwhile, F is still trying to get a new phone and I’ll do what I can to help her. Any and all support is welcome.
But I’m also sharing this tale to remind you to not trust what you think you know about people in need.
Media headlines, consciously imposed narratives, and biased, self-serving perspectives don’t serve any other purpose than to further divide us.
I thank you in advance for looking into your heart before accepting external beliefs…
All the links you need to help F and to help me keep things going and growing are below.
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Stolen or broken phones are a huge setback and often one that takes days or weeks to fix especially if you need a new phone number, contact information again and whatnot. Oddly our phone in Thailand (me and my husband only have one between us lately) was lost or more likely stolen while it was charging at the camp a few weeks ago. I say more likely stolen because somebody offered us his phone to call for it, our phone was on and somebody answered it the first time (and hung up immediately when Ka started asking about it). After that though it went straight to voicemail. There's ways to lock the phone but some know how to get around those things or simply to sell the component parts. The entire modern world is built up on the basis of regular Internet access usually on smartphones and regular electricity access. These two things are tied together of course and are very difficult for someone without a regular home or a safe area to put those things. Prayers for F...
Unhappily or inconveniently, I probably could live without a phone. But I have safety nets.
People without those safety nets suffer a lot more. You need contact info to apply for anything, including govt assistance, for starters. Not to mention accessing pleasures like playing a game or reading a book or kniwing whether it's likely to rain.
Someone I love who has been on or near "the street" for years now has had stuff stolen repeatedly. Or even tossed by caretakers when having to go from a shelter to hospital.
I cannot imagine the hopelessness