something

she sits on the curb where i meet my driver, a child strapped to her back. three others sit next to her, playing with a mangy stray cat that’s missing half its tail. it would be easy to ignore her, to ignore them. i could look at my phone, search for something at the bottom of my purse, or look across the street. i do that sometimes. i’ve seen her maybe twenty times and i admit that some days i can’t handle looking at her.

today i pause. i don’t know why.

i glance at her. she is drowning in raggedy clothes, with too-skinny arms, hands tightly clutching the trash bag that’s slung over her shoulder. she’s a “trashpicker.” her face is dirty and her hair sticks out in clumps from under an old hat. she could be twenty years old. she could be forty. it’s impossible for me to tell.

i shift my gaze. looking at her kids makes my heart hurt. they are all younger than 5 years old. maybe. i imagine they’re small for their ages. dirty faces, clothes somehow too big and too small all at once, matted hair and dark brown eyes. they look at me, wary. i look at them and feel too many things.

i remind myself that i don’t know anything about them. not even one thing. i think for a second that maybe their life isn’t as difficult as i have imagined it to be. maybe they have a safe place to sleep. maybe they aren’t hungry. maybe they have things like toys and a change of clothes. maybe.

i had to force myself to look at them and now i can’t stop. my driver is waiting with a perplexed look on his face. i realize i’m staring so i smile at the kids and say “pagi,” a local morning greeting. they smile back, as kids do. i wave; they wave back and then grin to eachother. it’s a beautiful thing when kids smile- makes you forget about the dirt and the scabs and the pity. but i am still feeling too many things.

like- i want to give these kids a bath, buy them clothes that fit, brush their teeth and feed them three times in one day. i want them to go to preschool, to look at books and play with toys and climb on playground equipment and do art projects that only their mother could love. but these things are things i can’t give them. if there were an agency… surely there’s an agency? i don’t know. i don’t know how charity works here. if it works here.

i have paused too long. thoughts are racing through my head, thoughts like “giving her money is not a solution.” but this is “My View of the World” and we both know she doesn’t live in my world and maybe not having to think about lunch would make her life better today. i pull a bill out of my purse- 50,000 IDR, about five bucks. it can’t buy clothes and toys and preschool, but it can buy a few meals of street food for her and her kids.

she smiles, puts her palms together and nods to me. “ma kasih, ibu.” thank you, mrs. her kids look at the blue bill in their mother’s hand and laugh, jumping up and down. maybe they know the blue one buys more food than the brown one or the green one. maybe. i remind myself again that i do not know even one thing about them.

i come home and look at the pile of clothes that has been sitting on my girl’s bureau for months. things she has outgrown. i sort through it, filling a sturdy vinyl bag with shorts, underwear, tshirts, pants. i add a plastic ball, a plastic toy car, and an unopened package of biscuits. i put it in my car.

i don’t know if giving her this bag will insult her or make her happy. i don’t know if she will keep the things or sell them. i don’t know if i am doing the right thing. but i’ve been doing nothing for a while. doing something seems like a better idea.