Ralph

Yesterday, I was walking back home from the local gym along a crowded and busy street when I heard my name yelled from back behind me. I turned to look and saw an older man seated along the sidewalk, begging for money with a small Styrofoam cup, giving me a grin. I’ve met a fair number of people here and unfortunately they don’t all stick in my mind quite as clearly as the gringo kid does in theirs. I inquisitively went up and shook his hand, searching my memory for where we had met. Ralph reminded me that it had been in the park a week earlier, where he had invited me to come and sit with him and some of the students he was teaching English to as I waited for a friend. He sheepishly looked down at his cup of money and said, “Well, this is what I do”.

We began to talk and I asked him what a guy like him was doing begging for pesos. Ralph was born in the DR, but spent 35 years in the states before returning back to the Dominican several years ago. At sixty years old, Ralph is intelligent, speaks 5 languages (English, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, and German) fluently, and used to be the number one telemarketing salesman for his old employer. He even ran me through his typical sales pitch, imitating the women on the other end of the phone as well. He knows what it’s like to live with money, and he knows what it’s like to be at rock bottom with a Heroine addiction. He said he’s been clean from heroine for a couple of years now and I asked him why he didn’t choose to work. He responded to me, that despite the fact that he is intelligent, speaks perfect English as well as other languages, an employer just doesn’t want to hire someone without any top teeth, that is dressed poorly, and smells bad. He said, since he is living on the streets, he has no way to overcome this very first hurdle; he is caught in the cycle of poverty.

I sat there listening to Ralph share his story, thinking that there has to be some way of overcoming this initial hurdle to get Ralph a job and back on his feet. A man as intelligent as Ralph spends his days drunk and begging, because he just can’t make it past that job interview that could allow him to leave his current life of despair.
Probably the most impacting part of my time with Ralph was his confession to me that he drank. “Travis, I’m not going to lie to you, I have a couple of drinks…. Because I’m on the street”. At first I didn’t understand what he meant by that and prodded a bit more. Pausing, he looked at me and said, “Do you know what it is to beg? You can’t understand the hurt and humiliation that I go through when I sit here and ask for pesos from people. I ask for 1 peso, 1peso, that’s nothing! I am perfectly capable of standing, but if I stand no one will give me anything. I have to slink beneath them, sitting here on the cement, enduring the pains from sitting on the cement below the people all day. I drink so that I can beg. I’m not a drinker Travis, but I drink to numb the humiliation”.

It hurt me to see someone that once, must have been so proud, now here stuck in a rut of loneliness and humiliation. A father of two girls in the United States and once a successful business man and patron of the U.S Army for nine years, Ralph now sat alone on the island of Hispaniola, only wondering were his daughters and wife had ended up, alone and disconnected from the world. As I left, Ralph let me know where I could find him if I ever wanted to help. I assured him that I did. But I’m sitting here now thinking about how I can help Ralph, how I can be like Jesus for Ralph. I’m sure he’d be pretty stoked if I gave him five bucks and he could eat for a couple of days, but that’s really not helping Ralph, maybe just making my conscience feel good. It’s quite a bit easier to toss him some money than it is to actually care about Ralph, and help him to try and step out of the cycle of poverty. I think that I’m going to go and get Ralph some shampoo and deodorant tomorrows (I know that might seem offensive, but he let me know that he realized his underarms are “barking” and his bad smell is one of the reasons employers reject him). Then, maybe we can sit and brainstorm some ideas for work or about establishing a small language-tutoring program. Keep Ralph in your prayers and if you read this and have any thoughts or ideas for Ralph or how I could continue building a relationship with Ralph let me know.

Here is a photo of the Ladies from the project in Munoz as we celebrate the final day.