Questions for discussion prepared by Wei Djao.
1. How is Tata, Shalla’s son, developing empathy?
2. In the last chapter, the author says: “Shalla Monteiro was born gifted in empathy” (p. 295). What is this gift? Are people born with or without it?
3. The author writes further: “But it took the bitterness of her parents’ troubled marriage to learn to live in the moment and to find moments of bliss and deep connection with others.” Must we go through extended experiences of frustration, hardship or sadness to develop empathy?
4. Poetry played a part in the initial contact between Shalla and Raimundo. Do you think Shalla would act or change her interaction with Adriano or Raimundo if they were incoherent, illiterate with little or no education?
5. Describe a meeting (encounter or incident) you have had with a homeless person, a pan handler or a beggar. How did you feel about that person at that time? Would you have changed your thinking, feelings or action after reading Goldman’s chapter on homelessness? How?
The following are some quotes from Chapter 7. Use them or not in your discussion. Bring up passages from the chapter that struck you as interesting or inspiring.
Page 162 Mostly we try to get the painful images of how these people live out of our minds as we pass by.
Page 165 Adriano, I learn, is 28 years old and has lived on the street for the past 12 years, after leaving home due to some family difficulties that I can’t get him to reveal. He is very clear—almost defensive—that this is where he is supposed to be.
Page 164 “We must find a way to understand people’s lives whom we’ve judged. You don’t judge a person you just pass by and look at [because] you do not understand.” “It’s true,” Shalla says, nodding. She hangs on to his words, listening to and curating the twists and turns of his thoughts. Occasionally, she picks up on a thread and helps him draw out the meaning or clarify an idea.
Page 165 She explains that Adriano uses the word capacity to mean an ability to think, to act, to produce. Shalla wants me to understand that Adriano has a self-awareness of his own agency.
Page 166 “What have I observed about human beings? A capacity that everyone thinks and carries with them. But I have a capacity, yes, I have the capacity to have life, I can achieve everything in life. I have capacity, I am a human being equal to all. Simply this!” “This is beautiful, Adriano,” Shalla exclaims.
Page 172 The emotional connection was very important to their relationship.
Page 175 Still, compared to many with schizophrenia, Raimundo was easier to talk to, given his ability to communicate, both verbally and through his writing. Often people with hallucinations or delusions mistake the intentions of others, leading them to become fearful.
Page 175 As Dr. Gentil walked farther away from the supermarket, he noticed another person in distress just a metre or so away. This man was likely intoxicated and unconscious. He was also homeless. “The man was at risk of all sorts of medical problems, but there was nobody around. Nobody would call an ambulance for him.” The disparity was troubling to Dr. Gentil. He even wrote to Brazil’s medical board, the Conselho Federal de Medicina, and asked if there was an ethical obligation to offer help. He says the board replied that the problem is so widespread that he “cannot be personally responsible for it.”
Page 179 But what gave her the instinct to build that bridge and to cross it in the first place?
Page 179 “She has the ability to transform ideas into actions very effectively,” he adds, noting that there were a number of situations during the initial process of moving Raimundo off the street when Shalla “had to use all her diplomatic and political ability to get all those people who helped her to do their job.”
Page 181 “When I saw Raimundo for the first time, I couldn’t see anything other than [the fact that] he was enlightened,” she says. “He was meditating. It was something that I cannot explain, because it’s not rational. It’s like when I met my husband, Ignacio. We were in Mexico City, in a very huge square called the Zócalo.”
Page 184 She saw someone ignoring the pain and degradation of homelessness to strike a pose of enlightened meditation. She saw a soul who lived in the moment.
Page 184 “What I want to do is to encourage people to develop emotional connections to those who are homeless, to develop friendships,” says Shalla. “I think that is my path, you know?”
Page 185 “I think it can be inherited, though I don’t know if it’s necessarily genetic, but rather through the experience of living with someone,” she says, pushing her son on a set of swings. “The form in which the child perceives the other. Children absorb a lot from their environment.
Page 186 “It’s like this little park we are in,” Shalla explains, which has an enclosed fence and childproof gates. “In here, the children are free, but when you leave this area, the child can no longer be open. I hope Tata doesn’t have that sense.” At this phase of beginning to set limits, Shalla tries to give Tata the confidence to continue exploring, to improvise, to move naturally through the world. “My philosophy is to preserve the being,” she tells me. She says there is some discussion about whether Tata understands that Adriano is homeless, but mostly it doesn’t seem to matter. We sit in a sand pit while Tata plays with trucks, and I ask him again about his friendship with Adriano. “I play with him. I talk with him.” Tata runs his trucks through the sand, accompanied by sound effects. “How did you become friends?” I ask. “I gave him a kiss and we became friends,”
