Little Marginalizer

I had a huge fight with dad last night, it was the kind of fight that makes you retreat more from your parents, even though the more they grow older the more you feel responsible towards them and scared to lose them. But some people cease to grow up once they become parents.

I got dressed and left home, walked to this mall that's near where I live, I was supposed to wait for a friend to pick me up, I just needed a drink.

Taxi drivers where pressing their cars' horns asking me if I needed a lift, people pass by looking at the lone girl with the high heels boots, but only one approached me:

....خديلك مسّاحة يا خالة, أربعة ب 100, الله يخليكي, منشان الله, أربعة ب 100

I didn’t look at him at first, I was accustomed to ignore beggars and especially children beggars: we should not encourage them to beg by giving them what they expect from us.

But he kept talking, some get tired and leave you alone when you ignore them, some change their begging style and start crying to get what they want, but this little kid did not change his tone, nor his words, nor his facial features, nothing changed at all, he just kept talking raising his little head at me. I looked at him while he was addressing me, I kept looking at him for few seconds, at his wide brown eyes while blinking, he is looking at my eyes and he cannot see me, I was invisible to him, he was invisible to him. I freaked out; I inserted my hand into my purse to give him the money: "I don’t need anything, just take the money." He got the money and walked away quietly, I changed my spot.

My friend came just this minute, I got into the car faceless. Sat back thinking about this kid whose face was tougher than dad's.

Many are poor and many people's lives are abused and many are many sad horrible things, each child beggar has a horrible story, but some remain children while begging, they lie and cry and act but you can still feel their sad childhood. This kid wasn’t a child, his very marginalization dehumanized him and his dehumanization marginalized me, he cannot notice life, he is dead. I was dead that minute. His problem is my problem. I am not being selfless, I am being very selfish.

Many things make children what they are, it's not their innocence, but their curiosity and their attentiveness to details, they observe things we take for granted. That fundamental characteristic was not there in this kid, and that's what made me truly scared.

Too much attention makes you invisible sometimes.

Here I have to say that during my stay in Beirut, I ran into one child beggar, I talked to him and introduced myself as a Syrian, "I am Syrian too! I am Kurdish, and you're invited to visit us anytime", he said.

Why most beggars in Syria are children? And why is it normalized?
I was thinking after that bloggers meetup to have a certain theme each monthly blogger meetup, that every meeting there is a "Syrian Bloggers' Story of the Month" and I am thinking that this month's story would be on children beggars, each blogger would sit down in the café interviewing the child and reflect his/her situation on her/his blog, it's not that we're helping them or reflecting their truths, but I guess it's a good start to try to understand? and perhaps one day we'll try to help other people's children. That's what it means to be part of any country and any nation, what it means to call yourself "Syrian", this very suffix, n, simply means you care enough to make Syria better.