A Detour to St. Ann's

I was warming up my car on my way to university when this woman came up to my window and asked me for a favor. She had been walking down the street when she approached me. She asked, "Could you give me ride to St. Ann's? I'm pregnant and I have to go to St. Ann to visit my sister."

Typically, I'm pretty cautious when strangers approach me, but how often is it that you have a fellow Albanian ask you for help? I introduced myself and shook her hand when she got in the car. She introduced herself as Shamar and told me that she was 19 years old. Originally she came from Charleston South Carolina and her 36 year old boyfriend had her car. Since she was pregnant she spent most of her time sleeping. She was on her way to visit her sister at the St. Ann's Institute and was concerned about her because her sister was on drugs and had gotten in some trouble. She mentioned that she used to live there herself when she was younger and that she used to do drugs and was always getting into arguments. After being at St. Ann's she never wanted to go back to that life.

I dropped her off and sent my regards to her and her sister, but found myself in a contemplative state about our larger community here at Albany.

It's not very often that my daily path crosses someone like Shamar. Here at university our concerns are on learning and focusing on our future. I was having a conversation with our lead senator Kevin Lahey the other day about how we live in a broken world. I was saying to him that even the best systems that we as mankind have built needs maintanence, needs to be updated. A good friend of mine who volunteers at the Capital City Rescue Mission onced said to me, "The problem in Albany is not that people are not donating enough money or goods to the poor in this area. The problem is that they don't know any of them, they don't take the time to know them." I have to agree with him. I may never see Shamar again but she is a good reminder of who else is in my community, my local sphere.