Sunday November 18 - More fair Stuff

Sunday November 18 - More fair Stuff


Well there are a lot more homeless around here than we originally figured. And as well, a lot more people from the "outside" contributing their time, energy and resources to meet the need. I can only guess at about 1500-2000 homeless and about half that number volunteers. And at points it was a real circus. You couldn't tell what was going on, but once you found something you could recognize things went smoother. But getting through the plethora of venders offering services was enough to drive one crazy, if not to the point of discouragement.

I did talk to a woman who works at the ARCH as a "case manager" and confirmed that case management could help both Mary and I get some things needed together, without imposing their own ideas on us or attempting to change things we are already committed too. So, eventually we will look deeper into the "CM" services.

There were also legal and medical providers vending their services, but we did not look into them at this time, but it's nice to know they are there and if needed CM can make the right connections. Mary currently makes use of the ARCH clinic and this gets her required meds. Now I guess we'll have to look into vision care as her glasses were lost with her purse yesterday. But the means are there.

A group known as "Mobil Loaves and Fishes" fed this entire bunch yesterday. They operate the food trucks that frequent the area distributing meals to the poor and homeless. It was really rather impressive. It would probably remind many of a mobile army field kitchen and well run. They obviously have been doing this for a while and have the experience to make it work.

The afternoon was spent laying around on the grounds of the Austin State Hospital. This is, or at least was, a "mental hospital", although there was virtually no evidence of any current activity. I must admit having the thought that they were "measuring us for size." There certainly was enough room to accommodate the lot of us. The thing is, none of the real "truly" crazies that frequent the ARCH never showed up. I guess they were scared of the location, possibly having been here before.

Looking at the mass of broken humanity I could not help but think of Moses, leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. That must have been one hell of a job. And though so many have come together to provide basic services and needs, and even though some parrot the religious rhetoric espoused by well-meaning providers, there was no value system which met the real spiritual needs of these who at the near close of the fair wandered off in their separate directions, each finding their own ways in a setting increasingly hostile to them. It reminded me of the final scene of my favorite motion picture, "Lawrence of Arabia".

Lawrence, who at the end of World War One tried to help organize the Arabs into an independent entity, had just been promoted Colonel in the British Army. He was being chauffeured to a port and return to England. Along the way he passed Arab Bedouins he had led and fought alongside with. They, returning to what he knew was, for the time, was to be a life of subjection to Imperial powers, greater than what they were capable of contending with. I believed he realized "he was British", he could not help them, they had to learn and come to a place where they could help themselves. A place of adapting to the world , as it is, and yet retaining the values and traditions that make ones culture unique and valuable.

Despite all the negativity I believe there is a sort of "tribal" value system that is being experienced amidst the homeless, similar to the "hippy" experience of the sixties. True, there is No unifying philosophy or code of ethics, except the natural recognition of the individual conscience for that which is innately and universally accepted good and of value. It is not perfect, but potential. And There are rebels, unwilling, or unable, to accept any value system.