First published in May 2007 at Times & Seasons.
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They weren’t like us. “Watch out for les Arabes,” I learned as a missionary in the south of France.
“Les Arabes” were refugees, or the descendants of refugees, from the former French colonies in North Africa, who congregated in large French cities like Marseille. “Les Arabes” were dangerous. Some missionary – nobody remembered who, or when, or under what circumstances – had been held up at knifepoint by “les Arabes” and his bicycle had been stolen. “Don’t carry cash with you because les Arabes will pick your pockets,” warned local members.
We had an investigator who lived in a large subsidized housing complex outside of Marseille. These “HLM’s” are comparable to the public housing projects in major American cities, and the one we had to visit was as desolate and seemed as dangerous as any I had ever seen on TV. Even the bus didn’t go to this HLM – after getting off the bus, we had to walk on the side of a busy six-lane highway nearly a mile uphill to the complex.
It was an ugly place. There was no grass between the bare concrete buildings. There was plenty of broken glass, though. Babies wandered barefoot through the dirt and broken glass, seemingly without supervision, dressed only in t-shirts; undiapered, they squatted where they were to relieve themselves. Teenagers seemed to be everywhere, usually kicking soccer balls. A soccer ball once hit me painfully in the back of my head; when I turned around, nobody was looking in my direction. Most of the time, though, it seemed like the kids were always staring at us, pointing, saying things in a language I didn’t recognize, and laughing in a vaguely menacing way. Our investigator, who lived on the ground floor, used to spread honey on the low wall in front of her door to attract buzzing insects so that kids wouldn’t sit there. My mother would have been terrified to see where I went every week. To tell the truth, I wasn’t too happy about it myself.
One afternoon we got off the bus and started our hike up the side of the highway. Perhaps a half-mile from the HLM, we were startled to see a little boy – obviously a boy because he was dressed only in his t-shirt – barely old enough to walk, toddling down the hill toward us. He had come all that way without any of the dozens of drivers who had passed him stopping to take him out of danger. Although I didn’t like to hold his dirty, bare little body next to mine, I picked him up and carried him on my hip up the hill, my companion adding my bookbag to her own.
The instant we reached the HLM, we were surrounded uncomfortably closely by a gang of young people. We managed to make them understand that we had picked up this baby on the highway, and asked if they knew who he belonged to. Someone took the baby, the crowd dispersed, and we went to visit our investigator.
It’s hard to describe the subtle change we experienced on our later visits to that complex. Nobody spoke to us, nobody smiled at us – but the laughing and finger-pointing ceased. No more soccer balls whizzed near our ankles, and certainly no more soccer balls hit us in the head. In a subtle but unmistakable way, the unspoken hostility between “them” and “us” had vanished.
Thank you for sharing this. Do we search for our differences and let them define us or shall we seek for the similarities that the children of God share?
It seems like every other commenter has something profound or scholarly to say. I have nothing intelligent to say, just my appreciation for this (and other) stories. I can take this little gem of a story and tuck it away in my head for some other day when I need the example or reminder.
Thank you, Dutchscouter — that’s the question of the hour, isn’t it?
Tiffany, it’s true that some commenters add some amazing value by their comments (Keepa has the best commenters in the Bloggernacle), but the notes that let me know you enjoyed something, or that it moved you in some way, or that you recognized the spirit that moved someone I’ve written about, are the ones that touch me the most. Thank you.
Isn’t this what matters? The kindness we show one another that can overcome just enough. Thank you for sharing.
Ah les habitations a loyer modere. Who could ever forget them?
I’m always amazed at your long term memory. Mine does me no favors.
What Tiffany said. This was just perfect for this moment. Thank you.
So *that* is what HLM stands for! I don’t recall ever having known the origin of the acronym … but I guess I don’t remember ever asking, either.
Those can sometimes be scary places. My own experiences weren’t generally that rough. Once an apple flew by my head, but little French kids generally don’t learn how to throw accurately, so we were safer so long as we were the targets. Sometimes I was grateful soccer was the national pastime, and not baseball.
[ankle, I fished your comment out of the spam filter and told WordPress that you are not spam. If your next comment doesn’t show up properly, please alert me — contact information at the top of the sidebar — so I can try again. — Ardis]
This is a great story. Thank you.
In Brazil, Muslims of whatever national origin were referred to as “Turcos.” I was cautioned to avoid them too and especially not to trust them in the markets but I never did anything noble like you did.
Small acts of kindness are a universal language. Bless you for reminding us of this.
I too served in France and remember almost getting hit by the occasional flying fruit or vegetable.
I found that just talking to people can make a huge difference. In one city, we were harassed and threatened by some teenage boys the first time we visited a particular building to follow up on a referral. The ward members were horrified that we would even think about going into that neighborhood, especially when we told them we were going back. The next time, when the boys started to shout at us, we just walked over and talked to them, told where we were from, asked about them and what they liked. Although we would still never go there after dark, they never bothered us again. It was a good learning experience.
About 35 years ago, I visited New Orleans on a vacation. One of the members was a black woman who lived in a neighborhood where the missionaries were not even allowed to go. Also, her home teachers and visiting teachers visited with her at church, not at her home. So it’s not just in foreign countries that we have problems with dangerous neighborhoods. I believe hers was a black neighborhood, not Muslims, however. Whatever its demographics, it was a very high crime area. So it’s not necessarily WHO lives there, but what they do that makes the difference.
Ardis: I am not surprised you handled the situation the way you did. In Nashville, two elders decided to start tracting one of the more notorious public housing projects in Nashville. They started out by going to what they perceived to be the leader of a gang and introduced themselves, assuring them they were ministers and not police or federal agents and were there to share messages of Christ in their neighborhood. They were never bothered and, in fact, protected by this gang. This story was given to me by one of those missionaries after he was transferred to my branch while I was serving as the branch mission leader.
I have gone visiting teaching in neighborhoods in which the people I was visiting made me promise not to visit them after dark. And I would only go into some of those neighborhoods on the Lord’s errand, because it could tell from the way that people looked at me that the Holy Ghost was right behind me, making me and my elderly companion the scariest things on the street.
My friend’s son served among the Haitian people in Florida. He and his companion had people try to run their bikes off the road, or even hit them with their cars. They prayed for their safety. One day they knocked on an apartment door. The man inside had no interest in their religious message, but he wondered if they knew anything about stereos. His was spread all over the front room. Well, the companion had worked in an electronics shop and was sure he could fix the stereo. After a couple of hours it worked perfectly. They shook hands and said goodbye.
Shortly thereafter, the word on the street was that the local drug kingpin had placed the Mormon missionaries under his personal protection, and anyone bothering them would answer to him. Sometimes the Lord works in very mysterious ways.
I love your story Ardis, and the message it shares.
I have often wondered if “dangerous neighborhoods” aren’t, in part, a chicken-and-egg thing. When society labels them as dangerous and stops going there, they may actually become more dangerous — and I suspect that labels like this sometimes give local authorities a pass in trying to solve the problems in the “dangerous neighborhood.” I think this is a vicious cycle, at least in part.
We owe thanks to those, like Ardis, who try to break the cycle.
Amen to this.
I’m living in a large metropolitan area in the South with a racially diverse population for the first time in my life, after living mostly in the northeastern US. My husband, who was born and raised in this city, often tells me which neighborhoods are the “bad” ones and need to be avoided. Sadly, this often seems to be the ones that are majority black and hispanic.
Well, this drove me to google, because we never called them HLMs. Rather, it was “the ZUP” (rhymes with soup), which I now know stands for zones à urbanizer en priorité.
Thanks for the reminiscence.
I am not an expert on urban planning, by any means, but it has always seemed that if my ward included a ‘bad neighborhood’ that’s where I went visiting teaching. One thing that I have noticed is that many neighborhoods can be dangerous to ‘outsiders,’ especially outsiders who look either clueless or meddlesome. This can include having the wrong color of skin, the wrong type of clothes, or a car that is much to beat up or too flashy. Even not knowing the neighborhood customs can make a person stand out. This applies as much to some wealthy, white, ‘safe’ neighborhoods as it does to poorer ones with higher crime rates.
Knowing where you are going, moving in a purposeful manner, being polite without being snoopy, and being aware of your surroundings can help a lot.