I went down to Colombia, South America for my son's wedding five years ago. It was the first time I witnessed how a homeless person lived over a long period of time.
We started our trip in Bogota, Colombia. The city is made up of Districts. I think the one we were staying in was called the Clothing district. My daughter in laws family owned an apartment there.
Bogota is the Capital of Colombia having 8.081 million people call it home. There were a few people walking around that you knew were homeless.
As days continued with our stay in Bogota I started to see a pattern with the people that were homeless.
Each person had their block where they lived. Other homeless persons would come and go but when daylight came it was time for them to find a place to sleep in somewhat safety. This is when I noticed they all went to their home block to sleep.
At night was it safe for women to go outside along? No.
When going outside to smoke at night I would have to wait until someone went out with me. There is a time for being independent and then there is a time for being stupid about your safety. I chose the smart route and had someone come with me when I smoked at night.
In the early mornings, I would wake up and have horrible coughing fits. Later I found out I had bronchitis. In order not to wake up the whole household I would grab the keys and run down the 3 flights of stairs and go outside to cough. It wasn't a pretty thing to hear by any means.
One of those mornings my son came down after I had been gone a while. He walked out the door to see me sitting on the ledge that happened to be there and saw the blocks homeless man sleeping under the eaves of the building about 10 feet from me.
My son knew the city and its ways. He can not hide the fact with his light brown hair and bright blue eyes that he is from the USA. As his Mother with pure white hair and bright blue eyes you can tell from miles off I too am from the USA. I will let you draw your own conclusions on why I added this information.
On this morning when he came out he glanced with worry at the man sleeping and then at me. Because he loves me he said that maybe I should go back inside.
I laughed and told him I was very safe right where I was. I then said that the man sleeping here would not harm me because this was his block. He is smart enough to know that if he did harm me he would then lose his safe block to live in.
My son's eyes widened, he nodded his head, sat down next to me, and we proceeded to have a great morning talk.
This is my Day 16 - Selfie Freewrite Celebration Contest .
Part Two
Here I will ask you for a bit of patience while reading to see how these two stories tie together.
Somedays you wake up with the stars and moons in your world alining in such a way that you have to be blind not to notice. This morning was once such time for me.
I woke up to the video you will see below. It is made by a Steemian named . His Ulog post My Gratitude Song entitled: "I AM SURPASSIAN" tells a bit more about why he made this original song and video.
The video brought tears to my eyes. It shows, not homeless people but people from places around our world that might not have the same advantages that we have. If you watch only one thing in this video go to 2:42, stop it and read what it says.
Last night while still trying to find out as much information I can about #Ulogs so they make total sense to me I stopped by 's blog and read his post called THE IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING BY THE *ULOG" RULES
Now anyone that knows me knows I hate rules and have been known to not read anything that has the word rule in it. In this case, seeing the word rule I could not click fast enough. Below is a copy of those rules from blog post.
Now let's tie all of these stories together.
There is a man called trying to make the world a better place for all people by using Steemit.com as a means to give people a chance to make some money that they need in order to eat and have a place to sleep.
As you can see from the video, people are taking what he is teaching and running classes on how to make a Steemit.com #Ulog post before they even sign up to get an account.
Most of the people I know do not have a lot but most did have an education and speak English as their first language. Signing up for Steemit.com was just another trial to see what it was all about for most. Not all but most people.
To see first hand how someone, , came up with an idea to try and help all people help themselves to a better life through education and Steemit.com is pulling on all of my heartstrings.
It makes me have faith in the world that there are people out there willing to try as best as they can to help so many.
Last I will leave you with a part of the conversation I had with last night.
This conversation had nothing to do with homeless people or Ulogs but as I said at the beginning of this post the stars and moon aligned in such a way that the conversation, used with 's permission, is the perfect ending to this post.
Thank you so much for stopping by!