quote:The first thing you should know about Fielding's The World's Most Dangerous Places is that it is not a comforting book. Its pages bristle with tales of land mines, war zones, terrorists, mercenaries, mafiosi, massacres, kidnappers, drug smugglers, and all the other unpleasant travel disasters that are the stuff of nightmares. But then, as the editors point out in their foreword, "as travelers are kidnapped and executed in Cambodia, a recognized dangerous place, they also are hunted down and murdered in Los Angeles." In other words, the most dangerous thing in the world is ignorance.
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Mike, this actually sounds like just the sort of thing I've been looking for. Have you actually read it or did you just stumble across it?
On a related note, there are a few topics I'm trying to look into. If anyone has any ideas on how to look into real-world inner city street life, complete with kids on the street, childhood prostitution, drugs, and street smarts, I'd love to get some references. Even a realistic fictional account would be useful.
I remember some posts by a guy who teaches school in the Brazilian ghettos over the other side. But it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to make up. I just can't imagine wanting to write about that.
[This message has been edited by franc li (edited October 03, 2005).]
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I've dipped into it, but I never read it cover to cover. I used it to plan for safety issues for work overseas when I was leading teams on projects in South America.
The parts I read seemed to be fairly realistic.
You could google 'favelas' and get info on slum life in Rio de Janeiro. That's fairly horrendous. Once when i was working there we were doing a project trying to figure out where lead contamination in soil was coming from. Turned out to be from decades of gang warfare. The bullets gave it away.
[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited October 03, 2005).]
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Christine didn't specifically mention Rio as where her locale was at. If you are looking into American poverty, check out the works of Jonathan Kozol, particularly a book called "Rachel And Her Children." It's a look at homeless families in America.
I did volunteer work with the homeless for a few years, and might be able to offer some suggestions. If you let me know the specific milieu issues you might have, I can probably help at least point you in the right direction.
Street life is tough. I recall being told once that 100% of all women who are on the streets for several weeks have been raped. Whether that stat is true or not, I'm not sure; but if the percentage isn't that high I'm sure it comes darned close. It's a sad thing when you see so many teenagers living on the streets, knowing the dangers, and realize that for many of them the streets are safer for them than living in their own homes.
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It may not be 100%, but it is certainly likely to be close to that, depending on how many weeks and who you count as being "women who are on the streets".
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Two movies you can checkout if you haven't already are Menace 2 Society and maybe to a lesser extent Boyz in the Hood. Both are dramatized, of course, but they give a fairly raw account of a certain slice of inner city life. Both are about 10 or so years old, so maybe somewhat dated in terms of what you're looking for.
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Thanks, everyone. I'll check out some of those books/movies/web pages.
More specifically, I'm going to have a young girl living on the streets for some period of time. I'm working from the ground up and this is research time. I just want to know. Depending upon what I discover may influence how long the girl has been on the streets, when her parent(s) died, and other important character background issues. I'm tentatively planning to set this novel in St. Louis because I know that city, but I imagine that its street life is much like any city across the U.S. I know I don't want to pick New York or L.A. because they're overdone.
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No, living on the street varies a lot depending on what city and even what part of the city (and whether you're even in the city). There are plenty of places where being completely homeless doesn't equate to living on the street, and places where having a "residence" doesn't mean you're not on the street.
There are commonalities...but the differences aren't minor.
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Well, I guess that goes to show where I need to start.
Seriously, the millieu isn't set in stone. Neither is the character. I've got some plot ideas and a tentative outline in my head but I'm holding off anything major until I have a far more thorough understanding of this topic. This is one of those times when the specific details aren't nearly as important as a true understanding of the overall picture.
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One of the most interesting examinations of life on the street that I've read was in "Ender's Shadow". The culture, charaters and interactions that OSC creates are realistic and harsh, even though it is fictious.
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You might find Go Ask Alice useful, Christine. It's based on the diary of a young woman who got into drugs and also ran away from home. I read it many years ago, but as far as I remember it is her own story, unexpurgated.
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Many churches and organizations have street ministries/programs aimed at helping people who live on the streets. Depending on how safe you feel, you may want to consider getting involved for a short period of time or even just once or twice as an opportunity to observe and to talk to the people there.
I used to live in transitional housing through the city I live in, and there was a large number of the people there who were on their way up from having lived on the streets. It was amazing some of the backgrounds that people had: several were college and university educated with degrees coming out the yin yang, and they had lost everything. The most common denominator among those who had been on the street was an addiction of some kind: alcholism, drugs and gambling were the big three.
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Another factor that tends to lead people into homelessness is mental illness. In the '70's the institutions for the mentally ill began to close, with the idea that the folks living in those institutions could do fine living in halfway houses which would transition them into society, with supervision. The problem is that the funding evaporated for the transitional housing, but the institution closings kept marching on. So a lot of these folks got shoveled out onto the streets. The shelter I used to volunteer with, Baloney Joe's, used to receive mentally ill people who had been released from state funded programs and who had been given the shelter address and told "Go there" for help. It was a crappy thing to do. These people who were marginal for success on their own to start with. It didn't take any time at all for them to fall through the cracks and end up on the streets. So, in addition to the people with addictions, you have the mentally ill who become prey. They don't have the skills to protect themselves from harm.
During times of economic hardships, you often find regular people among the homeless. I've known people who were holding down a full time job, and were STILL homeless because they couldn't come up with the money needed for deposit to get into their own apartment. Minimum wage is NOT living wage. And most folks don't realize they are only one or two paychecks away from the streets. Think how many rent/mortgage payments YOU could miss before the landlord/bank would lose their sense of humor and kick you out. One serious illness, one job loss in a bad economy, one catastrophic financial loss (loss of a home due to, say, a hurricane might count)... no one is immune from the dangers of homelessness.
I get on my soapbox regarding this issue. I spent 2-1/2 years editing and writing for a nationally distributed newsletter on homelessness.
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Oh, and I wanted to add one thing... volunteering for a homeless shelter is a WONDERFUL thing. I advocate strongly that everyone should give themselves the gift of this opportunity at some point in their life.
Some of the most wonderful, kindhearted people I've ever met in my life are street folk. They appreciate, to the core of their being, having someone give them a kind word. They show you gratitude on a whole new level. I used to take my kids with me down to Baloney Joe's all the time. The staff who run these shelters are professionals and they are experts at maintaining an upbeat and safe environment. The emotions can get volitile, so they are on it instantly if someone starts getting a little out of hand. I felt safer sitting in a homeless shelter than sitting waiting for the city bus, by far.
One time a homeless man gave my daughter 25 cents, just because he thought she was cute. (She was about 3 or 4 at the time.) When you think about little he really owned, he basically gave away a fairly significant chunk of his total wealth. A lot of homeless folk are like that, very warm-hearted.
That's not to say that there aren't some dangers. The dangerous ones are the ones on drugs or a combination of drugs/mental illness.
You find a kooky mix of people working at homeless shelters. It reminded me a whole lot of the tv shows M*A*S*H or Barney Miller. Lots of drama, lots of funny stuff, lots of pathos, lots of poignant moments that will change you and change the way you look at life and all its comforts.
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In the Quaker high school I attended, I volunteered-at-gunpoint for many charitable activities I would never have otherwise done. Some were okay and worth it but most, I felt then (and feel now), were a waste of my time.
I missed out on "working in a homeless shelter" by taking my senior high school year at a junior college. Sometimes I wonder, though, whether it would have been a good or bad experience. I heard both were true from those who actually did it...
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I did volunteer in a homeless shelter for a day when I was in high school. The problem then, as now, in using this as an information gathering source is simple: shyness. I'm better than I used to be but talking to strangers and interacting with them, whether they are homless, rich, mentally ill, or "normal" has always been a problem for me.
Actually, now that I think about it there is another problem. I'm entirely unobservant. This is partly reltaed to a visual impairment that keeps me from noticing details, but it is even more related to a lifelong habit of looking at the big picture. If you read mys stuff, you'll notice that I'm a stickler for relevant details...I have to force myself to do mood setting when it needs to be there. Anyway, I remember one time when I was living in Austin, TX and walking through a bad part of town...I was just slow on the uptake, if you know what I mean...I saw a woman stumble and fall into some bushes and I instantly stopped walking and asked if she was all right and if I could help. She didn't answer, but someone walking down the road snickered at me like I was an idiot and said she was drunk, which was when I figured it out -- the suitcase she had with her should have been a dead giveaway. I didn't notice it until after the fact, though.
Despite being less hands-on, books have the advantage of putting me behind the eyes of a person who is both outgoing and observant.
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Little slice of life, in a Korean subway station some time ago. There was this guy, dressed in a workman's coverall, lying on a bench. Dead drunk. As in, he looked like a day old corpse.
People are walking by, and I'm wondering what to do about this (my Korean isn't all that good), when a middle aged man in a three piece suit walks up and very casually checks the guy's pulse. He doesn't even put down his suitcase. Just feels for a pulse, then walks off.
It is hard to express what that encounter symbolizes about both Korean society and our own, both by contrast and analogy. But it isn't just a symbol, it's a real incident.
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