Piqpagi

~Kindness Is A Gift Given Free~

After what he told me by the shop window he simply smiled again and continued on his way saying nothing more, at first I couldn't help but feel awkward since by the way he was acting I wasn't sure if he simply didn't want to talk about the subject or if I had done something more to offend him but as vague as his answer was I don't really feel like it was a cut off but still it only leaves me with more questions then I had before.

I continue to follow alongside him deciding not to press the subject anymore and also trying to process all of what he had just told me only moments before as well as the incident I had just witnessed.

I hadn't really had a lot of time to think about how truly strange it was to develop an attachment to a stranger in such a strange place, in truth I wasn't really sure what to think about it and at times I wasn't really too sure what to think of Nanuq himself.

When I first met him that summer day at first I was overwhelmed by my curiosity of him and I suppose the artistic side of me found a certain beauty or perhaps it was the beauty I found in my fascination by him as a subject.

At that moment in time I wasn't quite sure what I was fascinated by, was it the exotic quality to him as an aboriginal and uncivilized oddity prompting the opportunity for study of something unique? Maybe it was some of those things but when you came to my house that morning so vulnerable yet so kind I feel as though I saw something in his eyes that I never saw in them before and even to this day I'm not quite sure what it was but something about it changed how I saw him just a little bit but enough to make some sort of a difference in a way that I can't quite explain.

On the ship here once I was told by my dear cousin that I would be meeting Nanuq the princess boy I made quite a few jokes at his expense words that I would never dare say about anyone else and when I met him as polite as I was I now realize that I seemed to have stared at him as if I was looking at something in a zoo and I didn't even speak to him.

I realize thinking about all of this that he was right! 

"People like me Barnabas… we are never the heroes! We are never even the victims! Most of your people do not wish to remember that we are people too!"

As his words rang in my head all the pieces began to fall into place and it made my stomach sink to the bottom of my soul, it all made sense the way that the people were looking at him, the way that man treated him, the way that I treated him!

That night when I looked into his eyes and I saw that special something I realize now that at that moment it was the very first time that I ever truly saw him as a man! Something that he struggled every day was trying to be seen as only to be shot down…

It's true that I don't know much about him or why he was in prison or even why he does some of the strange things that he does like what he's doing right now carrying tarp bags to the town but I wish to learn more about him not just as a subject but as the man he is.

suddenly interrupting me from being lost in my thoughts I almost tripped over one of the back skis of the sled when it's pulled to a sudden stop.

I hadn't been paying too much attention to my surroundings simply walking and following the dog's barks so I was a little shocked to suddenly find myself somehow in an even bleaker side of town.

"Thank you for all of your help Barnabas I can take it from here if you want to go now"

 Oh no it's perfectly all right!"

He looks at me for a brief but noticeable moment almost as if he's hesitant but he nods his head and signals to me to follow him with as many tarp bags as I can carry.

Some part of me almost regrets my decision as the smell of urine and all other foul things that I don't even want to name begin to plug my nose the closer we walk through the slushy snow stained black by coal and littered with little puddles of spilled oil.

I looked up and I could see black unnatural clouds and the more I adjusted my eyes I could see that they were coming from a very tall smokestack off into the distance near what looks like the military base Nanuq then rounds another corner and I step into a pile of feces but I can't help be distracted from that when I hear the sounds of crying children and what sounds like a woman weeping.

My eyes don't know how to process what they're seeing it seems like for miles there's a forest but not any of the lush green forests I'm used to seeing instead this is a forest of tents made from garbage, seemingly anything that could be found is here and used for roofing, old tin, tarp cardboard, pelts, even old car parts and news papers.

There's fires burning in old oil barrels often with five or more people anxiously crowded around them desperate to warm their cold hands.

Inside each of these makeshift roofs all huddled together is women and children and elderly couples all caked in filth and lips pale and chapped with cold, some of the children don't even have shoes let alone proper clothes and some people are obviously sick, throwing up or holding badly bandage wounds, shaking from either cold or hunger.

There's one elderly woman trying to stop a baby from crying so much while a maybe seven or eight year old boy rests his head on her shoulder next to her with an old t-shirt as a bloody bandage wrapped around where his left foot had once been.

In the newspaper hut closest to us sitting just outside of it in front of an old pail of water is a young woman with sickly pale skin crapey and dull with blue chapped lips lips and sunken bloodshot baggy eyes intently focused on her task of scrubbing old boots in the pail of water with her bare cold hands and then shining them on a cotton cloth all while she nurses two babies tucked into her oversized blouse with a toddler holding onto her skirt sucking on his knuckle.

I feel like I could break down and cry but instead I'm just frozen there like a fool in front of these helpless families Nanuq meanwhile slowly walks up to her and kneels down in front of her with a bundle of bread and meat outstretched to her. 

She drops the boots and with shaking hands reaches out and smiles with tears of joy spilling from her sparkling eyes while she takes the bread.

"But? I don't have any money, how can I?" She can barely speak but Nanuq flashes her his classic smile and says.

"Loving one's neighbor requires no payment and no reward! Kindness is a gift that's freely given for we are all children of this Earth!" He tells her softly.

"Oh thank you! Thank the Lord Jesus and bless your soul! You must be an angel!" She says as she kisses his hand and thanks him over and over until she breaks down crying.

She holds her shoulders and gently rubs them to comfort her as he tells her sweetly.

"Shhh it's all right! You're a hard-working woman so keep your chin up, things will get better! I'll be your angel as long as you need me to be so don't worry and don't thank me! Just feed yourself and your children... I'm sorry that I couldn't do more"

She quickly dries her tears and smiles a big and bright smile from ear to ear that lights of her face as if it was bringing her back to life then happy as can be she calls to her other children to come over.

"Kolby! Anne! June! Carter! Come here we can eat! We can eat!"

More small children swarm around her and she breaks up enough food for each of them and herself.

"Don't forget to thank Jesus and this kind soul!" She tells the children and before Nanuq can protest the youngest girl gives him a hug and he gives her bright smile then stands up and with a gentle motion in a wave goodbye he moves on over before they can probably thank him and is swarmed by by people mainly mothers and old women asking if he has enough food for them and their children as well.

"Please my children haven't had anything to eat! I have a dime please!" One young pregnant women pleads but he refuses her offer and gives her a loaf and a piece of meat free.

He gives each and every person a loaf and a piece of meat as he goes through the rest of the shacks and gives food bundles to everyone including the people who are skeptical or even rude to him all with a kind smile on his face only jogging back to me to ask for another bag every now and then until he is sure that everyone has food.

Then he says to me our job is done in this side of town and I'm speechless but I follow him eager to be of more help.