I felt a tap on my shoulder. As a 17 years old, I was standing on a dusty street corner with my camera in Philippi East township, South Africa, documenting a shelter-upgrade project. As I clicked my camera, focusing in on the proud new owner of the home and the community of workers surrounding her, I felt like I was contributing to something greater than my own interests. No longer would the family live in a makeshift tin shack. But that tap on my shoulder startled me out of my naive belief that I was truly being helpful.
I turned around to see the tapper, an older, local woman from the neighborhood, standing right behind me. My heart skipped a beat; I was suddenly frozen and, without my camera lens between me and the subject, I was struck by her intensely questioning look.
I was an American intern working with my camera. I had been seeing, even documenting the local community, but despite my acute awareness of the poverty around me, I remained detached, safely behind the armor of my camera lens.
Sensing her questions and still feeling her tap on my shoulder, I was overcome by a series of emotions. The most overwhelming of which was helplessness. This woman, this mother, asked me if I was giving out school scholarships. Somehow, through me, a complete stranger, she hoped she would find her son’s ticket out of poverty.
Fully aware that I had no scholarships, but desperately hoping to “feel” as well as “see,” I apprehensively left the work crew and the safety of the few people I knew to follow the woman. I found myself entering into the story of her life, “getting proximate” as Bryan Stevenson would say, and connecting with someone, not because I had an agenda but because I was genuinely interested in learning more.
Just as “seeing” does not automatically mean one is “feeling,” the act of “doing” must be coupled with “feeling” for true learning to occur. I followed the woman. I met her son. I met her husband. She told me that her husband was sick and could not work. Their home was falling down around them. Instead of snapping photos, I tried to feel. I wondered about her life and her work opportunities. I noticed that the red lamp in the far corner stood unplugged in a home with no access to electricity. I tried to feel what made it poignant for the lamp to be there instead of wondering how to get the family electrical power. And I opened my heart to listen.
My new acquaintance made it clear to me that education, a diploma for their son, was the only hope they had for a different future for all of them, and I made it clear that, despite what they thought, I had nothing to offer. I was in Philippi East to learn; I was not equipped to solve a problem I didn’t fully understand. Yet, in the tight space of a dilapidated shack, I was suddenly proximate with the desperation of those surviving in the challenges that, until that moment, I had merely been documenting. Liberated by any sense that I had to somehow fix their lives for them, I was able to truly be present and fully take in the scope of opportunity and responsibility that lay before me in my life.
While I needed a tap on my shoulder to remind me to feel as well as see, I realized that I could take the lessons learned from afar and come back home to see my place in my community in a renewed way; an empowered way - one that coupled doing and seeing with feeling - and that was the ultimate way to learn and ultimately lead effectively.
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