I wouldn't have thought until today about the fact that solar panels, when mounted on top of poles, can provide shade. But they can. Just a small patch of shade, but shade none-the-less.
It happened like this, my noticing the shade of the solar panel. I had just dropped off my colleague, Larry Luth, at the airport for his trip to Guatemala for the week for meetings. Heading back home I stopped at a light, one of the very few in Port-au-Prince. As I waited at the light, a young boy, probably 8 or 9 years old, began wiping my SUV, one of the ways children try to earn a living. Instinctively, I waved him off, having just had my vehicle wiped clean the day before. As he made his way to the car behind me, I noted the two people he had been sitting with on the sidewalk. One, an even younger child, maybe five, was begging the old man they were sitting with for something the old man had. It looked like a straw, but I couldn't tell and couldn't imagine. The old man, looking to be somewhere around the life-expectancy age here in Haiti: 62, was sitting cross-legged on a sheet of cardboard.
As I waited for the light to change, I wondered what might possess an old man and young child to sit at this dusty, noisy intersection. And then I noticed the patch of shade they were sitting in. The traffic light, not able to count on electrical supply from the public utility, was powered by its own solar panel at the top of the pole. This panel, probably 3'x6' (1metre x 2 metres), threw a patch of shade. This patch of shade was the Sunday afternoon living room of the old man, the straw-begging five-year-old, and the nine-year-old car-wiper. The one I had just waved off. I thought about taking a picture, but with the image already pressed into my memory, it wasn't necessary. My Sunday afternoon living room, when I got back from the trip to the airport was not only indoors in the shade but had fans, cool water, comfortably furniture, and a meal I shared with my family complete with meat, cheese, vegetables, and even a rare luxury of ice-cream. And with all that, I'm a little uncomfortable.
Now, I know enough to know that the solution isn't for me to hire every towel-waving eight-year-old I see to wipe my car. Nor is it to find my own patch of solar-panel-shade and forsake my living room and fans. That would be futile. I also know that these folks in the shade of the solar panel are not the worst off in the city or the country. The eight-year-old wiping cars near the airport is actually pretty good marketing, strictly speaking, and that they are probably pulling in a few hundred gourdes -- the national minimum wage rate for a day of labour -- in just an hour or so, even though those few hundred gourdes happen to be the same as what I paid for caramel sauce for our ice cream sundaes yesterday.
The solution, or perhaps a better word would be response, is multifold. First, nurturing a reflexive emotional response of compassion. This first one might seem like a no-brainer, but believe it or not, when you get asked a few dozen times a day if you'd like someone to wipe your car, stop traffic for you, change your windshield wipers, sell you a bag of water, or a host of other ways the less fortunate try to gather cash from the 'haves' like me, you start to develop what I described in my second paragraph, where I 'instinctively' waved the boy off. Even while I continue to need to wave off eight-year-olds who want to wipe my car, I need to proactively nurture compassion. Otherwise cynicism will creep in.
Second, like this blog post, we need to give things a second thought. I don't want to become numb to the gaping need all around me, that the people on the canvas of my day become little more than wallpaper. I want to keep seeing people and wondering about their plight and life and at least entering the struggle with them enough to feel what I am feeling now. Sometimes those second thoughts will extend to others, like sharing in this blog post, because those folks in the shade of the solar panel probably won't be posting it in their blog. I didn't see a laptop among their belongings.
Finally, even if I can't do anything more than paying folks to wipe my car a little more regularly, I can think creatively in my own circle of influence about how my living is affecting the poor where I live. Maybe for you in California, Cambridge, or Calgary it might mean tipping the waitress at the diner a little more healthily. Maybe it means thinking strategically about our political activity -- when voting or appealing for something, that that thing is about the benefit of the folks who live in the 'shade of the solar panels' of our cities. I don't think we all need to get on an airplane to find them. My guess is that anyone with a compassionate reflex, able to give a second thought, and think creatively will be able to find them. I did, and I wasn't even trying.
It happened like this, my noticing the shade of the solar panel. I had just dropped off my colleague, Larry Luth, at the airport for his trip to Guatemala for the week for meetings. Heading back home I stopped at a light, one of the very few in Port-au-Prince. As I waited at the light, a young boy, probably 8 or 9 years old, began wiping my SUV, one of the ways children try to earn a living. Instinctively, I waved him off, having just had my vehicle wiped clean the day before. As he made his way to the car behind me, I noted the two people he had been sitting with on the sidewalk. One, an even younger child, maybe five, was begging the old man they were sitting with for something the old man had. It looked like a straw, but I couldn't tell and couldn't imagine. The old man, looking to be somewhere around the life-expectancy age here in Haiti: 62, was sitting cross-legged on a sheet of cardboard.
As I waited for the light to change, I wondered what might possess an old man and young child to sit at this dusty, noisy intersection. And then I noticed the patch of shade they were sitting in. The traffic light, not able to count on electrical supply from the public utility, was powered by its own solar panel at the top of the pole. This panel, probably 3'x6' (1metre x 2 metres), threw a patch of shade. This patch of shade was the Sunday afternoon living room of the old man, the straw-begging five-year-old, and the nine-year-old car-wiper. The one I had just waved off. I thought about taking a picture, but with the image already pressed into my memory, it wasn't necessary. My Sunday afternoon living room, when I got back from the trip to the airport was not only indoors in the shade but had fans, cool water, comfortably furniture, and a meal I shared with my family complete with meat, cheese, vegetables, and even a rare luxury of ice-cream. And with all that, I'm a little uncomfortable.
Now, I know enough to know that the solution isn't for me to hire every towel-waving eight-year-old I see to wipe my car. Nor is it to find my own patch of solar-panel-shade and forsake my living room and fans. That would be futile. I also know that these folks in the shade of the solar panel are not the worst off in the city or the country. The eight-year-old wiping cars near the airport is actually pretty good marketing, strictly speaking, and that they are probably pulling in a few hundred gourdes -- the national minimum wage rate for a day of labour -- in just an hour or so, even though those few hundred gourdes happen to be the same as what I paid for caramel sauce for our ice cream sundaes yesterday.
The solution, or perhaps a better word would be response, is multifold. First, nurturing a reflexive emotional response of compassion. This first one might seem like a no-brainer, but believe it or not, when you get asked a few dozen times a day if you'd like someone to wipe your car, stop traffic for you, change your windshield wipers, sell you a bag of water, or a host of other ways the less fortunate try to gather cash from the 'haves' like me, you start to develop what I described in my second paragraph, where I 'instinctively' waved the boy off. Even while I continue to need to wave off eight-year-olds who want to wipe my car, I need to proactively nurture compassion. Otherwise cynicism will creep in.
Second, like this blog post, we need to give things a second thought. I don't want to become numb to the gaping need all around me, that the people on the canvas of my day become little more than wallpaper. I want to keep seeing people and wondering about their plight and life and at least entering the struggle with them enough to feel what I am feeling now. Sometimes those second thoughts will extend to others, like sharing in this blog post, because those folks in the shade of the solar panel probably won't be posting it in their blog. I didn't see a laptop among their belongings.
Finally, even if I can't do anything more than paying folks to wipe my car a little more regularly, I can think creatively in my own circle of influence about how my living is affecting the poor where I live. Maybe for you in California, Cambridge, or Calgary it might mean tipping the waitress at the diner a little more healthily. Maybe it means thinking strategically about our political activity -- when voting or appealing for something, that that thing is about the benefit of the folks who live in the 'shade of the solar panels' of our cities. I don't think we all need to get on an airplane to find them. My guess is that anyone with a compassionate reflex, able to give a second thought, and think creatively will be able to find them. I did, and I wasn't even trying.
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