We talked to Sarah the other day and her next task for us
was to “listen”. It’s usually hard for me to listen because my attention span
isn’t exactly very long unless it’s something very interesting. So I thought
about it… When you listen it’s not necessarily always listening to people. Some
of the best messages are from listening to people, don’t get me wrong. But I tried
JUST listening to the sounds of Ocean View without looking at it. I asked
myself “Does it sound like it looks? Does it sound happy? What do I hear here
that I wouldn’t back home?”
Well, trying to listen at Sarah’s
house didn’t work because there are some people from Alaska building a wall
right in front of her house, so there was too much ruckus to find what I was looking
for. Yohan is a guy who works with All Nations and he’s connected us with a
house of some of his team in Ocean View. A girl named Anita lives here. She’s
going back to the states for two weeks so Yohan asked if we could hang out at
the house to talk to anybody that might come up. We went yesterday just to check
it out and we ended up taking over the reins within minutes. It was just us
four girls hanging out outside by the gate. It was much easier to listen to
Ocean View at this moment because there were flats (usually one-room
apartments) directly across the street from us. Just listening to a regular two
o’clock day was actually quite delightful. It was a nice, sunny afternoon so
everyone was outside socializing. You could hear the kids playing, dogs
barking, and cars passing by. If I didn’t know it, I’d think I was in a normal
American community.
When you eliminate the judgment of
something visually it makes you analyze things a lot differently. Yeah, Ocean
View literally sounds like a nice place, at night it is quite different. I’ve
only listened from a distance so far, but from what I’ve gathered it’s a lot
different at night. You usually hear music playing loudly with some yelling
here and there, not always. You hear cars booming with bass as they pass by or
stop at the corner. People still walk around but they’re pretty quiet and shady.
It’s pretty well known that most crimes happen
during the night. Wednesday when Amanda and I went to a prayer meeting with
Yohan he made us more aware of the number of abuse and rapes that happen around
Ocean View. We were told of a particular girl who couldn’t even speak because
of what she’s gone through. This girl has an older sister that has been so
abused and neglected that she is now having black outs and seizures. People
have been doing too much looking and not enough listening. You can’t look at
someone and tell if they have seizures and black outs on a regular basis. It
was because someone took the time out to listen that she is now in the process
of being helped.
Solely looking at something and making
a judgment on it doesn’t nearly capture the severity of a situation. As fast
paced as us Americans are, we need to learn to slow down and not only look, but
listen. It might take you back to something familiar or it could turn someone’s
world upside down.
-Katie
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