Calles de Cartagena
Imagine you’re strolling down a cobblestone road, with bright colonial architecture surrounding your path. As you look left, you see a horse and carriage crossing the road and to the right, a group of young men with a speaker, rapping to passerby.
The air is slightly humid and salty, with dull but persistent music lingering in the background. Continue walking and you see people of all kinds, both locals and foreign, shopping, dining, and bustling through the old romantic city.
Cartagena, Colombia 2024
You continue on, until you cross paths with two young girls– around three and five years old. Their clothing is torn and tattered, as are their shoes. You smile at the two, and before you can make judgements, one of the girls tugs at your arm and motions you to follow her inside a nearby market.
In an instant, the girl explains that she and her sister are hungry, with a baby at home to also fend for. Without much processing, you nod, and the girls dart into the market. They begin piling beans, rice, diapers and formula at the register, speaking with the clerk and pointing to you as their bank.
You smile at the clerk and begin to help the girls load– but they don't need it. They manage to get more groceries than most could carry in a single trip, within 15 seconds of entering the store.
You pay the bill graciously and the girls say their gratitudes, leaving just as quickly as they came.
This was an experience of mine in Cartagena. Girls of three and five years old in the street, fending for themselves. So many questions and concerns have bustled through my mind, and continue to since that moment.
This served as a reminder to me that starkly different realities may coexist near to each other, a reminder that felt worthy of resharing. Though this concept wasn’t foreign, the nearness of circumstance made a clearer point.
We don’t have control over where we land in the mix of existence, but we can aim to see from a better vantage point. Through this experience, my awareness shifted and vantage point changed, as I hope it will continuously upon learning and growing.
If you are looking for truth, be ready to see it from every perspective - Plato