Faster than the eye can see…

My friend and neighbor is an ex-pat from Brazil. The other day he was helping me move sand and dirt. He did not know what a wheelbarrow was, even though he was holding onto one. He just did not know the word “wheelbarrow.” He did know something much more tragic.

He and his wife whose family is from Armenia have two wonderful 3-year-old boys.

He stated that he is worried about sending the twins to daycare, with the recent school shooting in his mind.

What he said next brought shivers to my bones. He said that he had seen a lot on the streets of Brazil. On these streets “things happen faster than an eye can see.”

Things happen faster than the eye can see.

In Brazil.

Where he grew up.

Where gangs shoot people.

Where children die.

Where poverty is endemic.

In Brazil, people carry guns and shoot faster than the eye can see.

Things happen faster than the eye can see.

In the United States.

In Buffalo.

In Uvalde.

Children are shot faster than the eye can see.

People shopping for groceries are gunned down faster than the eye can see.

He came from a gang-infested land. Where things happen faster than the eye can see.

His wife’s folks came from Armenia, where mass murder and genocide were the rule of the day.

They came to America, the place of freedom and safety.

Nothing happens here faster than the eye can see.

Until he shares, he is afraid to send his precious twins to daycare. Oh, by the way, he and his wife work for food, rent, and other stuff we all take for granted.

And they are not white folk. He speaks with a Latino accent. She can speak Armenian, and he is fluent in Portuguese. You should hear him when he talks to folk back in Brazil, it is a real joy. He laughs and cries. In Portuguese,

On my street in Boise, Idaho.

In the United States.

Where things are happening faster than the eye can see.

Where folk hunts down the other, the people of color, like his twins.

My neighbors, my friends.

On my street, where things can happen faster than the eye can see,

nothing like Brazil, not like Armenia.

Never happen here, until I talk to him, who does not know the word for wheelbarrow.

But he is afraid in the land where things happen faster than the eye can see.