Transparency -- seeing the world (and your neighbors) clearly

When I lived in Washington, DC, I saw a Romare Bearden exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, and his collage painting called "The Block" moved me.

I liked how he showed, as though he had Super Man's x-ray vision, the inner life scenes of people living on a block in Harlem.

What I'd like to try to do with Kibera is a similar sort of art work. But that won't likely be possible, since Bearden lived on that street in New York for quite some time, and we'll be visiting a sliver of Kibera for only about 10 days. Still, I think we'll begin to get some sort of window into the lives of people in Kibera, and I think that view will broaden our world-views.

It might be that, instead of providing a window into Kibera life (not really possible in the short time we'll be visiting), the trip will give us new lenses through which to view the United States from a broader and less U.S.-centric perspective.

I like to remind my independent school students that the United States represents less than five percent of the world's population, and that the median household income in the US is about $50,000. Here's a stat from wikipedia from 2006:

In 2006, there were approximately 116,011,000 households in the United
States. 1.93% of all households had annual incomes exceeding $250,000.[5]
12.3% fell below the federal poverty threshold[6] and the bottom 20% earned less than $19,178.[7]
The aggregate income distribution is highly concentrated towards the top, with
the top 6.37% earning roughly one third of all income, and those with
upper-middle incomes control [sic] a large, though declining, share of the total
earned income.[8][2]

Income inequality in the United States, which had decreased slowly after World War
II until 1970, began to increase in the 1970s until reaching a peak in 2006.
It declined a little in 2007.[9]
Households in the top quintile, 77% of which had two
or more income earners, had incomes exceeding $91,705. Households in the mid
quintile, with a mean of approximately one income earner per household had
incomes between $36,000 and $57,657. Households in the lowest quintile had
incomes less than $19,178 and the majority had no income earner.[10]

excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

And I presume that times will be even harder for a large number of Americans in the aftermath of the stock market crash of 2008.

During these eight trading days [In early October 2008], the DJIA would drop a total of 2,399.47 points or 22.11%. The market would rebound sharply on Monday October 13 and rise 936.42 points only to drop 733.08 points on Wednesday of that same week.
October was shaping up to be a volatile month because investors were
reacting to the worrisome credit market news that started back in March 2008.

Pasted from: http://www.money-zine.com/Investing/Stocks/Stock-Market-Crash-of-2008/

Now let's broaden our lens a bit. It may be that the average American seems to be hurting from our economic downturn. But all Americans -- even lower-than-average-income Americans --take a lot of things for granted -- things like drinkable water and electricity and sewage lines -- that most people in Kibera lack. But then again, from what I've read (I look forward to seeing for myself), there's a sense of community in Kibera that seems lacking from much of American society. Perhaps it's present in our inner cities to some degree -- what's that Ray Charles quote?

Affluence separates people. Poverty knits 'em together. You got some sugar
and I don't; I borrow some of yours. Next month you might not have any flour;
well, I'll give you some of mine.

Is that quote accurate? Wouldn't it be the case that people reveal their darker sides when there's a limited amount of food to go around? I wonder whether certain minimum conditions need to be present for Ray Charles' quote to hold. Is his quote pertinent only in America? Would it work in, say, the Darfur region of Sudan?

Perhaps our experience in Kibera will help us see the extent to which people in Nairobi share sugar and flour, or the Kenyan equivalent... I think there's a piece in the "Shadow Cities" book I've been reading that talks about women pooling money and one woman winning every week, so that twice a year people get infusions of cash. If I'm remembering the piece correctly, men do not participate in these activities. I'll need to find that quote (insert here).

Let me bring this rambling blog entry back to Bearden's painting: what do people's lives in Kibera look like? How are they different from (and similar to) conditions of urban poverty in major U.S. cities such as say Raleigh, Durham, New York, Chicago, LA, etc... What do our lives as Americans in 2009 look like? Where are our priorities?

What do we have to learn from the people in Kibera? And how can we serve as inspirations for them during the time we will be working and serving at the Red Rose School? Those seem like good questions to ponder.