Andrea on reserving judgment

Sign along the way to Andrea's Internship at Treatment Action Campaign

Today was the first day of my internship - which there's a lot to say about - but one moment that really stuck out to me was when I was just walking down a sandy dirt road looking at the ground ahead of me to avoid stepping on the broken glass that was everywhere.

There were beer bottle caps everywhere. Some facing down so you could read the name 'Castle' or 'Amstel', but others were bottom up with the rigid part ready to cut anyone who dared walk barefoot. It was Monday morning around eleven, so where I'm from that means nobody is really home - kids are at school and parents at work - but we had just passed a shebeen (an unlicensed bar in a township) where probably twenty men were drinking, smoking and playing pool. As I walked through the sandy paths between the informal settlements with a group of ten or so volunteer community mobilizers, going door-to-door talking with people about Tuberculosis and HIV prevention, treatment and adherence, I realized I was really judging the men in the shebeen.

How were they affording beer and cigarettes when their kids were running through the villages without shoes? Where did they even earn the money to buy the beer? Then I decided I was more mad at the alcohol companies. Who were they selling beer in this country- addicting people who could hardly afford to live? They were retarding the growth and possibilities of the whole country, they were ruining its hopeful future just for their own profit motivations. I was so mad. Who let capitalism do this? Who let them waste this potential?

Then I realized. This is everywhere. Mind you that whole train of thought took only 3 seconds - probably two steps over 40-something bottle caps - before I realized that this wasted potential is everywhere. Alcohol. Drugs. Violence. Whatever. You can blame whatever you want for seizing potential and retarding growth, but in the end its a combination of everything that shapes who were are, how we live our lives and what happens around us. People are addicted to alcohol in America too. There are people drinking at 11am on Mondays, but I just don't see it. I see productivity. I see the bright side of capitalism. The bustling cities. The busy malls. The flashy cars. Glamorous lifestyles on the front of magazines. Everything around us motivates us to achieve and become what we can.

I can't imagine having none of that around me. It's impossible for me to imagine growing up in a stunted township in Africa in a one room shack with no running water. People are products of their environments and it's not fair to judge anyone  - especially without considering their situation/circumstances/environment etc. It's hard to hold the men drinking in the shebeen on Monday morning accountable for their decisions when they haven't really been handed choices in the first place. Many in that township are victims - denied of their human rights and human dignity. There's so many moments during my days now when I have intense realizations, but my desire to reserve all judgments is a recurring one, and I'm really trying because what I've learned the most here is that there is always more than meets the eye.

I remember a student who did this program last year telling me she learned to always reserve judgment. I don't think I really understood it at the time, but I think I'm beginning to understand what she meant. It's human nature for people to judge their surroundings and make assumptions about what we see before we fully think it through, but I'd like to start fighting that tendency.