Detroit, My Love

My first day in Detroit, the capital of the American automotive industry: once the pride of the American Midwest, it now represents all that is corrupt and hopeless in big inner cities. Over the last fifty years Detroit’s population has shrunk by half, down from 1.5 million in its heyday. Even before the recent economic crisis the city was hard up; whole industrial complexes loom empty, the large train station is no more than an abandoned shell. Whole stretches of land within the city limits are overgrown because abandoned homes have been torn down or burnt to the ground and only the occasional stray dog indicates that there is still life here. The new mayor is seriously considering re-settling some of Detroit’s population and shutting down large areas of the city because the tax base has shrunk so substantially that it is impossible to maintain basic services such as water, electricity and roads in many parts of the Detroit.

I spend the morning in a soup kitchen run by a Catholic order: it is one of four that they run in the city, and six days a week they serve anywhere from three hundred to seven hundred meals a day. I help dishing out ice-cream, and my hands gets sore after an hour. The clientele is largely African-American, people without jobs, homes or a future. One of the men wears a T-shirt that says it all: “There is no American dream”- and most of them would echo that slogan. Both to shut out the sense of hopelessness and in the hope of making a quick buck, many turn to drugs: crack, cocaine, grass are all in easy supply.

I sit in on a small group with ten people, eight of them men, all of them with a drug history and problem. They have lost family, jobs, dignity and turned to crack to dull their pain, only to wake up twice as miserable the next day. One day they hit rock-bottom and ask for help, in the form of food, shelter, and detoxification. Some of them have been clean for a year, some for a few months, some are high even as we speak. One amongst them is new today: he is 27, good-looking, but sad. He is married and has two children, down in the South. But he got into drugs and eventually his wife kicked him out. “Come back when you are clean”, she said. He still loves her and wants her back; but he seems powerless to kick his habit. As others share their story, he breaks down and cries: “I want out, before it kills me”. At the end of the group he empties his pockets: no ID, but a knife, and plenty of drugs. We take him to Salvation Army: there he can get his head straight, while my friend works on getting him papers. Then he can be admitted into detox.

The next day I am in a Christian school for poor children from the city. When you see the pupils in their uniforms, how respectfully they relate, you would not believe that they come from really difficult backgrounds. But then the teacher tells them that we are missionaries and they can ask any question they want. “Why do people suffer?” is the first question, and it is not a purely academic one. Most of them struggle against enormous odds, but thanks to truly dedicated teachers and very generous sponsors most of them will graduate from high school, which is unheard of in this part of Detroit.

I get to meet the music teacher: she has worked in Salzburg and Vienna and so the report is immediate. It is clear that this woman is very gifted and could have landed a job anywhere. But she chose Detroit and now teaches children right here to play a string instrument. Would we like to hear a piece? Sure. So they play Vivaldi’s Gloria, and for a moment you forget where you are. Beauty seems to have conquered suffering, and the faces of the young artists prove it.

Next we drive by a set of apartment high-rises; they are empty and my guide explains that they were so drug-infested that a few years ago the city decided to shut them down. We go to see Sister Judy. In her little kitchen we make sandwiches, and once the lunch bags are made (complete with a kind word written on the outside of the brown paper bag) we set off in her little van. We drive around the wastelands of Detroit: abandoned houses, long without water and electricity, boarded up. Sister Judy stops in front of one of themm and honks the horn, waiting patiently. Eventually a pregnant woman comes out, whom Sister knows by name. “Hi, dear, how are you? Here is your lunch!” The scene repeats itself forty, fifty times: people come out, to get their lunch, a word of encouragement, sometimes a prayer, and a biscuit for their dog if they have such a friend. “Do you have socks? No, but Friday I will be back!” As we drive on we notice smoke billowing out of one house: we call the fire service. What happened? Did the house catch fire because the inmates fell asleep with their cigarettes still lit? Did they light a fire to warm themselves? Or did the police torch it, because it was another crack house? All of the above are possible and do happen regularly.

My week continues, and many more are my encounters, both with stories of pain and suffering, but also of hope and renewal: Herman, a former drug dealer who did eight years in prison for murder; now he pastors and a church and visits people who are “doing time” just like him to tell them that there is a way out. Numerous volunteers at the soup kitchen who, rather than fishing on Lake Michigan or sunbathing in Florida, decide to make food, collect clothes or counsel clients; young people who give up their summers so they can run after-school programmes for children who have never known their dad- the list is endless.

My last day: ten of us set off to South West Detroit, an area also known as Mexican town. As the name indicates it is heavily Hispanic in make-up, and while it is slightly better off than some other areas we have been in during the last few days, drugs and crime related to them are just as prevalent. Our destination is a little park, 20 meters by 20: the walls surrounding it are full of graffiti, and our task is to paint over them in bright colours, so as to make the place more inviting for children and young moms. So why is there a police car present as we pull up? The organization we work with has requested their presence because the graffiti we are about to blot out with bright and innocent colours is gang-related, and our activity is eyed with suspicion. Every so often teams like ours get threatened or worse, so officer Gomez is there to make her presence felt. The neighbours are also there and eye us, initially with suspicion, but then with gratitude: “thanks for taking the time to make our community more beautiful”. After five hours we agree: the park looks more inviting, cheery, fun- as if somebody cared. How long will it stay that way, one is tempted to ask; when will they come and spray over our handiwork again? Is it not futile to try and compete with them, a bit like Sisyphus rolling the rock up the mountain only to see it rolled down again? Maybe, maybe not: but I prefer a different metaphor, that of the man who sees somebody on the beach throwing starfish back into the sea. When he asks the stranger whether he thinks his activity makes a difference, the stranger picks up another starfish, throws it into the waves and says “I sure made a difference for this one”.