This time, Andy, Chris and I left the campus earlier in an attempt to spend more time with the homeless people. We arrived at Harrisburg around 7pm but even then, some people were sleeping already. I looked around and I have noticed that there were more people than there were in the beginning of the month. Usually, people get money from the government in the beginning of the month; many homeless people are hard to find during that time since they are busy squandering the money.
I greeted Mr. Boyd and he seemed happy to see me again. Mr. Boyd is from Dominican Republic and currently an American citizen. He is very short, and he always wears a turban on his head. As soon as I greeted him, Mr. Boyd started to talk about the same thing that he has already told me when I met him first time. While talking to Mr. Boyd, I realized that he had some sort of patterns in his stories. Funny thing was that he ended the conversation with the same sentence that he used last time: “I am Mr. Boyd, and I am an advocate for the homeless people.” As Andy said, Mr. Boyd knew “how to talk the talk.”
After the conversation with Mr. Boyd, I walked to the guy to whom Andy was talking. The man’s name was Don. He was a short but big white man. Don had a delightful personality but seemed to like women too much – every time women with short skirts passed by, he whistled and cracked some inappropriate jokes about them.
Don had a turbulent life. He worked as a painter for a long time but his girl friend who was a drug addict stabbed him in his stomach and he miraculously survived. He raised his shirt and showed us his scar on his stomach and said that the doctor told him not to get any job that stresses him. For past three year, he did not tell anyone in his family and lived a homeless life. I asked him why and he said that he did not want to worry anyone. When he was talking about his family, his voice started to tremble and his eyes turned red. And he continued: “I am going back to my home tomorrow by bus. I need 6 more dollars for the bus ticket. Can you guys help me out?” When Don asked for money, honestly, I was a little suspicious of him but did not say anything and let Andy give him 6 dollars from the donations we got from our friends.
While we were talking to Don, there were two policemen walking toward us. Don seemed little bit nervous when he saw the policemen and suddenly suggested us to walk around the city. As we were walking around, Don was keep peeking backwards; I looked back and noticed that those two policemen were still stalking us. Don was pointing at the buildings and was mumbling about something but I could not understand what he was saying. He probably was distracted by the policemen.
We ended up walking around the city for a while and the policemen were gone already. We finally came back to the place where we were originally. Around 10pm, a van from Bethesda mission organization came to provide the homeless food and supplies. Homeless people from all over the city surrounded the van and tried to get whatever they needed. Among the bustling people, a young girl caught my eyes; she was walking in between the homeless people wearing a very thin blouse and was shivering. But people were too busy and no one seemed to care about the girl. Eventually the man who drove the van gave the girl more clothes to wear.
I got sandwiches from the van and ate with the homeless. During the dinner time, I met an old man whose name was Walter. He graduated from Harrisburg Community College and worked as a mechanic for 20 years. I asked him the reason he is living on the street and he said “I sleep on the street once in a while. I love gambling and unluckily I messed up with my money this month so I have to sleep on the street for now.” In an astonishing manner, I asked him if sleeping outside is uncomfortable and then he replied “No, it is not too bad. I have my blankets and they are comfortable.” Walter’s responses were very shocking to me. And I was sad to witness the ironical situation with the mission organizations in Harrisburg.
Chris got gloves and a scarf from the van since he did not have them – they are very effective at keep the warmth. After Chris got them, we set up our beds and laid down on our beds. I covered myself with the blankets I brought. It was relatively warm night. Looking at the dark sky, I whispered to myself what Walter said: “It is not too bad.”
Issac Won
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