"Sure," I said, "no problem."
I ended up giving him about $25 (50,000 Ugandan shillings), just to get through the week. He never asked again and I never felt the same again; I don't know why.
Joseph is a sweet, energetic young man. I admire the way he easily makes friends and seems to include everyone, the kind of guy that is great with teenagers, somehow being able to walk the impossibly precarious tightrope of coolness and responsibility. When Joseph spoke in church, his words were sincere, though interestingly at the pulpit he seemed a bit schizophrenic - shy about being open, yet passionate about believing, as though he were still an adolescent at heart - terrified when open, invincible when closed.
Joseph, Andrew, and I would always try to sneak away from church meetings to find an "omupiira," a soccer ball; grabbing a couple youth and even somehow conning the local missionaries into playing with us, suits, ties, and all.
***
We must have played soccer for at least an hour with those two beautiful children. I can't remember their names now, but I remember that day - hot, wet, and wonderful. Elder Rodriguez, my missionary companion, was being a very good sport about playing with the kids, even though we had other things to do. But we always had other things to do, other things that had become boring and slow. I didn't like Elder Rodriguez very much. As a human being, I think his meekness and kindness could rival Gandhi, but the structure of his plans and work were, to me, ineffective, slow, and much too timid. And maybe I wanted to spite him a little, maybe that's why I was constantly trying to find a "pelota", a soccer ball, wherever we went, usually being able to snag a couple kids to play and laugh for a while.
On that particular day they were José's kids. José was a young, struggling father. The kind of guy that is great at parties, great at making people laugh, always trying to lighten the mood. The kind of man that, behind the nervous twinkle, has a depth of childish terror in his eyes, like the look of a loosing gambler.
We had already visited José and his wife two or three times and so had gone over most of the basics: Jesus Christ, the Great Apostasy, the Priesthood, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, etc. They were very receptive, but noncommittal; aren't we all? I guess so, except for the receptive part.
Argentina's economy was still recovering from a terrible depression and so work was scarce. There were so many men we met that were like José, doing mostly pick-up jobs - painting, construction, cement work, etc. - just to get by. But in San Clemente it seemed harder sometimes, maybe because it is less urban, it's a small town on Argentina's east coast. And I would imagine that the local economy depends mostly on summer tourism, and, at the time, it was winter. My mind jumps to Cinderella Man: "You know, they keep cutting shifts down at the docks...and you don't get picked everyday."
"The thing is, I can't afford to pay the heat...I've had to farm out my kids."
"You know me well enough to know if I had anywhere else to go...I wouldn't be here. If you could help me though this time, I sure would be grateful..."
***
Joseph asked me for money and I gave it to him, so did José, and we gave it to him. But it was different than the movie. Watching something pitiful and experiencing something pitiful seem like two very different things. One feels like watching a child say he's sorry and the other feels like you have to be a child not to view a man differently.
In economics, money isn't even real, it's a symbol, a means to an end, some kind of mysterious river that facilitates the exchange of goods. So why have I felt so strange in those scenarios? I felt like I was perpetuating a dirty secret, like I was deceived, like with each respective, miniscule amount of money each respective Joseph bought a fuchsia-colored elephant (my mind jumps to the horses in the Wizard of Oz) that stared at me ever after, at church meetings, at chance encounters, at soccer games.
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