Street Clowns & Social Responsibility

 It’s quite typical to see people in the streets selling various items: fruit, phone cards, newspapers, even packs of gum or toys. It’s illegal, so they have to keep an eye out for police while
selling their items. Also, when you stop at a red light often someone will
clean your windshield, hoping for a few Quetzales as payment. And of course, as
in all places I’ve been, there are beggars. I see one man every day on my way home
from the Project who has no legs and rides around on a certain street corner in
a wheelchair rigged with steerable pedals for his hands. All these things seem
“normal” to me. However, I have seen other strange and almost pitiful people,
mostly kids, in the streets trying to make a living. They are the street
performers.

A young father with a 7 year old boy, dressed in clown suits
with painted faces run out in the street as soon as the light turns red. The
father quickly lifts the boy on his back as the boy proceeds to juggle for
10-15 seconds—just long enough to elicit impressive or merciful emotions from
drivers and just short enough to allow them time to disassemble their
performing stance and run by as many windows as possible to collect donations before
the light changes and everyone continues on their way never to think of the
street performers again. I’ve seen the juggling act often. Two young teenage
sisters in traditional Mayan dress juggling some sort of small fruit, the
younger sister standing on the elder’s back. Today I saw two boys, maybe 7 and
9 trying to juggle tennis balls, but neither of them were any good. One would
attempt to juggle and the other would scramble after the balls which would
bounce or roll under the cars lined up at the light. Considering how impatient
and inconsiderate drivers are in Guate, I was impressed to see no one honked or
yelled at the boys for their sloppy presentation, and even a few coins or bills
poked out the top of a cracked window here and there.

Today I also saw a teenage boy blowing fire. No donations
for him. I wanted to give him something but had no cash with me. He looked very
unhappy and it made me wonder what exactly he had in his mouth for blowing fire. He
was close enough to the slums that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a
substance whose container would read “TOXIC: DO NOT INGEST”

I don’t know enough about the social support system here to
make an educated philosophical decision about beggar handouts or street
performer donations. Part of me thinks I don’t want to encourage them to keep
doing something without real value. I’d prefer they didn’t receive any
financial reinforcement and thus, learned a skill or trade instead. But perhaps
that’s not feasible here. And who knows, maybe little Jorge likes spending his
afternoons hanging out with his dad learning how to juggle better. Maybe his
sister paints his clown face, and they giggle together as he sees in the mirror
what crazy idea she came up with that day. Either way, do I give them money and
reinforcement or withhold and hope that it encourages them to do something else
more productive and useful and in the meantime are able find help or support
through social services? I’m still not sure what the answer is. But the issue
is definitely complex: political, philosophical, spiritual…

Thoughts?