The Red Ball

“The Red Ball”

The Shock of Forgiveness

One measure of individual progress is whether your allow yourself to grow in consciousness, empathy, awareness and more.

One of my first memories was when I was three in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. My dad was a Foreign Service Officer and we lived in a beautiful home in the hills with a view of the famous Christ statue.

I had arrived when I was six months old and grew up learning both English and Portuguese.

I had friends in the neighborhood and we would play at each others’ homes. I remember that at different times during the day usually in the afternoon a large group of people would descend from higher up on the hill. I don’t remember much about this group only that my Brazilian friends would begin chanting insults at them. I remember one insult:

“Carocas carocas cara de minhoca!” “Fools, Fools with a worm face!”

Much later in life, I learned that the people coming down from above were “favelados,” the name given to the poorest of the poor. People so poor and ostracized that no-one will rent to them and so will settle in a shack in one the shanty towns that clutter the mountains of Rio and the outskirts of Sao Paulo. These shanty towns have no running water and no electricity. Poor in Brazil in not like poor in the U.S.. When you are poor in Brazil you are really poor.

As a four year old people were people. I had no notion of inequality. My parents had marched in the civil rights movement and sat in on lunch counters. My dad was a representative of the U.S. government. He believed, “that all men were created equal and in liberty and justice for all” and “all” and “men” meant everyone.

Well, this became a routine for us. My friends and I would play at each others'’ homes in beautiful yards behind big gates and when these “favelados” would come down from their shacks my friends would stop whatever they were doing, run to their gates and scream this refrain: “Carocas carocas cara de minhoca!”

My friends’ houses were in a cul-de-sac at the top of a hill on level ground the dirt trail leading higher up the mountain to the favelas was just inside the cul-de-sac. My house was on the edge of the cul-de-sac at the top of a steep street that sloped down into the city. Anyone leaving the cul-de-sac to descend the street passed in front of the gates of my house.

One day a large group of “favelados” descended down the dirt trail, past the cul-de-sac and in front of the gates of my house. Two of the neighborhood kids had come over and we were playing kick ball with a red ball I had just gotten. The moment the neighborhood kids realized that the “favelados" were descending the street they jumped up, ran to the gate and we began chanting our familiar insult. I ran after them holding the ball but when I reached the gate the ball fell through the grates and began rolling down the hill.

I don’t remember ever opening the gate myself or perhaps I was warned not to open the gate whatever the case I was certain I would never see my new ball again. I just remember watching the ball careen down the steep street and was certain that the people to whom I had screamed so many insults would run off it with it taunting us all the way. Vengeance would be theirs. Karma would have its final say.

But destiny plays out in unusual ways. Instead of vengeance and anger, justified anger, I watched as one of the kids charged after the ball, caught up with it and instead of taunts he ran back and handed it to me through the gate. I remember feeling shock. Maybe my first memory of profound surprise. We exchanged greetings and the person who had rescued my ball ran back to join his group descending the hill.

After this, every time the group descended, I would look for this acquaintance and we would greet each other. I stopped the “caroca, caroca…” taunt. We soon became friends and my mom, raised with a more egalitarian sensibility allowed me to play with what some mothers in the neighborhood might have considered this “untouchable.” I remember even being allowed to leave the confines of the gate to ride make shift go-carts down the dirt trail from the favelas.

I didn’t think too much about it then but I realize this was one experience that shaped me. Not because I never shouted an insult again but because I experienced the power of forgiveness. Instead of a group of people to be written off and insulted I realized a group is merely a collection of individuals some of whom were better people than me because, despite all of the abuse I had hurled, one brought back my ball.