On Madrid... and on prostitution

I passed through Madrid last summer, 2009. I’d gone there for a religious conference and also to start a tour to Southern and Central Spain. I really liked Madrid. I went to the Prado, the Reina Sofia, El Parque del Buen Retiro, the Thyssen-Bornemisza, and a few other spots. We weren’t there very long, but I really came to like it. It felt like a city I could very definitely live in. I was almost used to it already and we were only there for a short while.


In the main mall, in one of the streets that comes off the Plaza del Sol, there was a long stretch of shops and restaurants. Every city has that, even where I live. Every few metres the mall is decorated with small trees to both sides of a very wide footpath. Common, I know, my city has that too. Beside every one of these trees and just about every few metres of the mall, though, there were these girls. Girls, young girls, and older women dressed as girls. Most of them looked of Central or Southern American appearance. And there they were in little tight clothing, others in full tracksuit pants, just hanging about. Prostitutes. Everyone walked by them, around them, near them, just the same way you walk past the trees, the benches, the lightposts, the shops. Amongst them walked the shoppers, police officers from the nearby police station, and all of us tourists seeking the next tourist attraction. What the girls were seeking was business, same as you and me: a meal to eat. They looked so glamorous, so fit, so ready to take on the world. But what do you eat from when you have no job, possibly no legal immigrant status, and little workplace skills? It broke my heart, and I found it so hard to pinpoint the emotion. Any of those girls could have easily have been me.

Literally, there were all types of women there, some white, most moreno, some black, some malnourished skinny, some very chubby, some old, some very young-looking, some very femininely-dressed, others very boyish, and some probably were boys. Which one would I be? Would I be there? Where had they come from? South America, Slovenia, Russia, Africa, Spain? What had they done? Did they think moving to another country illegally would be easier? Would it get easier? What of the local girls, maybe they couldn’t finish high-school for whatever reason? What role did drugs play? Where did these girls really want to be? Could I be as brave as they if I had to be? And where were the pimps? It was all too organized, the girls well-placed equal distances apart, never offering to be selling or doing anything, they just stood there. It’s an ancient profession, it rarely needs to be advertised, but it just seemed like everyone knew what they were there for and who they were and no-one was bothered by it, not even the cops.

Sometimes some men in fancy designer clothes would stop and talk to the girls, you’d see them haggle for a few seconds, then they either walked away together or the men would walk away alone, a little further up the mall. As I watched this scenario, I came to really wish that more men would stop and talk to them and then walk away with them. I don’t know why I wished this, I couldn’t understand it then, but I guess it’s the same way you watch a starving child and hope that someone will have the will and power to feed him. I knew how these girls would get their next meal, and regardless of the same Christian feeling that had brought me to Madrid, I could not judge these girls as less than human. What broke my heart further is when the men would haggle with them and eventually walk away, leaving a very unhappy-looking girl to continue standing there. He’d walk to the next girl and have the same conversation. That stuff would really break my heart. Imagine having your own product judged, devalued, and then rejected – to leave you to starve another day.

There are people who see prostitution as an easy way out, but truth is most things seem easy when your belly is full, you’re warm, and there’s a shelter over your head. I don’t see a prostitute; I see a human trying to survive. Maybe it is partly because my mum had taught me as a child that every job is a dignified job, unless you’re stealing or taking advantage of your fellow man. These girls weren’t stealing from me, when I guess they really could have. They both inspired me and filled me with gratitude to my God.

Madrid was a truly spiritual experience. I really loved Madrid.
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The Two Madonnas

Luisa was troubled by the story of Pilar and her companion, let’s call him Paulo.

Luisa was a lot like Pilar. Pilar wondered, “Why can’t I love? Why can’t I be loved?” Luisa knew what this felt like, and she had her theories. ‘Is it because I love too readily, too hastily? Is it because I hold back so much? Is it my unwillingness to believe, to succumb, to trust? Is it my self-doubt; because these things preoccupy me? Is it because I am spiritual? Is it because I am sexual? Is it because I’m all these things at the same time? Is it because I’m nothing and no-one and too easily defeated by my own self doubt?’ Pilar wondered if Paulo thought her too profane or too holy. Either way, why was she so untouchable to him? What did Paulo see? What was he failing to see?

Before Paulo and before Pilar, a man had told Luisa that she was too pure (meaning too spiritual) for him to concede to love her (and waste her). Before him, another man had told Luisa that she was too dirty for him to believe that she could honestly and sincerely pray before God. Luisa knew they were both wrong and right in a way neither of them were worthy of.

Madonna thought herself unworthy of her calling. Luisa liked to think of Madonna. Madonna, as Roman Christians called the mother of Christ; she of ultimate faith who was given the privilege and challenge to bear Our Saviour and all that came with it, and accepted. The one woman of ultimate faith and spirituality was chosen. She is Madonna.

Luisa knew a song by one Madonna called ‘Like a virgin’. This Madonna represented all that is sexuality. Sexuality because we are sexual beings and one cannot talk of humanity without talking about sexuality. Denying it would be denying our being and existence. No matter how spiritual, we are ultimately sexual.

Luisa held a certain respect for religious figures who in sacrifice, sacrificed their sexual nature. Luisa admired them in the same way she admired prostitutes who sacrificed, killed, and numbed their humanity minutes at a time to exist purely as sexual beings devoid of spirit. She admired them as she admired former alcoholics and junkies and all other addicts because they sacrificed things that were of real value to them. Luisa knew that there was no glory in surrendering what you never had, knew, or even loved. Sacrifice, if it is the physical proof of our faith, must be of something worthwhile, and in our case, also human. Sexuality and spirituality are both human. One cannot say human without saying both spirit and sex. One cannot speak of God without conjuring up man who was created in his image. Luisa respected the two Madonnas for reminding her of both sides of what it is to be human and God-like.

Luisa thought, “This is exactly why I can’t be loved”. This is what the two men before Paulo and Pilar had said. The thought enlightened her but she still lay cold and alone as every other night, reading about Pilar and her companion.

On work

When I was a little kid I said “I want to be a doctor” the same way a lot of children say it. Now, I was at the time living in a third world country in the middle of a civil war and I came from a very large and poor family, so saying that was the equivalent to saying I wanted to be an oil magnate or something highly improbable like that. A few things happened to me, though, that don’t usually happen to most other people in my situation. Firstly, I was always incredibly stubborn so even a decision I made when I was six years old, was to me a life decision, a plan. Secondly, I had a family that didn’t shut my dreams down with the reality that kids from poor families in El Salvador don’t make it to university to study. The one thing that really drastically improved the chances of my childhood wish becoming a reality, though, was moving to Australia when I was nine.

Now, I went through my schooling in Australia fairly seamlessly. There was a period in year 11 when I lost interest in school because I found out that not a lot of other people thought like me, and I found it hard to understand how people can just claim authority over someone else and expect obedience from them. At the end of that year, though, I realised that I should obey silly things like going to my allocated class and not just doing the assessment if I was to make it into university. From the end of high school the plan was pretty straight forward: get an undergraduate degree in something I was good at (science) and then medical school, etc.

Everything went as planned until I finished my science degree because I didn’t make it into medical school straight away. I went for an interview at an interstate university and was so incredibly sick the day before I thought I was going to die. I even called my brother to tell him that if I died he could have my things, but in the end I didn’t have the courage to tell him that. The interview went horribly and I was left with a science degree I could do little with except post-graduate study in something boring and uninspiring.
I enrolled for post-graduate study in science and even managed to score myself a scholarship for that year.

My research project used a mice model so it involved a lot of time in a lab doing very fine and repetitive tasks. The lab I was working in was on top of this hill, on the top floor of the research building, and had a large clear window at the back from which I could see the world passing me by. I used to look out of the window all the time, feeling ashamed that I was there locked up in such a sterile environment wishing I was dead while the sun shone so brightly outside and everything outside of that place seemed to actually be alive. I grew increasingly more dark working in that place, dreading every day and its boredom, it’s repetitiveness, it’s staleness. I became quite sick and one day I decided, against everyone’s advice, that I wanted to re-learn what it was to be alive. Everyone told me that I may as well finish the year off, to not waste the last six or so months of my life. I told them that I had just wasted those months of my life and didn’t wasn’t to waste another three months feeling like I was dead inside. I had wanted to convince myself that perhaps medical research could work for me as a profession, but I found out the hard way that I couldn’t stand it.

That year again I tried and failed to gain entry to medical school, so after I quit my post-grad course, I decided to dedicate my time to learn to live again, to learn how to be Vanessa. That’s when I started writing again. It helped me sort out a lot of things inside me, to learn more from nature and about myself. The following year, I decided to go back to uni to do something fun and that met my interests, so I did a one-year course in my one true passion: creative writing. It was so much fun and really suited my needs. That year I applied and got an interview for medical school and was finally accepted into the course.

Medical school I soon learnt was a lot like high-school except for the teaching methods. It was largely uneventful until my third year when I had to do a rural placement outside of Brisbane. It was the first time I had been away from home and I’d just done a rotation I didn’t enjoy and was very badly treated by a member of the hospital and teaching staff. I was already struggling with feelings of low mood and motivation by the time my placement started, which were only exacerbated by the isolation. I tried my best to stay focused on just doing the work, being a machine that just does its work and then switches off until the next day. The only problem was that I can’t do that, I’m too sentient, and at that time I had very few mature coping strategies. Again I started to feel as I had when I was doing the post-grad science studies: dead and waiting only to die physically. I persisted for a few weeks by numbing myself out, but one day I remembered what it was like to enjoy living ,so I then realized I needed to regain that before I could go on with my studies. I withdrew from my course, returning home midway through my placement. What was strange to see then was the number of people (family, friends, and colleagues) who so quickly dismissed me as a dropout, lacking ambition, lacking passion for medicine, just severely lacking. I never once floundered in my desire, though, I wanted to work in medicine but I knew that was not the right time for me.

During my time away, I just continued writing, going for long walks, meeting a lot of new interesting people, and working to save up for a holiday I had planned for the following year. One of the key questions I wanted to answer for myself during my break was ‘why am I doing med?’ My fear had always been that it was just something I had said as a kid and was encouraged too forcefully by my family. If I had said I wanted to be a drug dealer, for example, I may have wanted it as stubbornly but my family would never had encouraged it. I started working a job in retail for some money, and looked at what other professions were around. Eventually I realised that med was the only job I could imagine doing, the only work I wanted to do if we as humans must work for survival, the only job in which I could see myself not hating my own existence every day. But I was never naive as to what a medical job actually was and so I knew that if I was going to continue with it, I had to acknowledge that it is just that: a job. A very privileged job, at that, in that it gives you the opportunity to help unrelated others to continue on with their lives with the burden of their physical troubles eased, but still just a job. And a job is just that; it’s not your reason for living, it’s not what keeps you warm at night, not what embraces you when you’re exhausted. I want my work not to be my place of solace; that’s what I want my home to be. I want to go home at the end of my work day and feel at peace. I want to look forward to going home at the end of the day, to have something truly special there to go home to, to someone that will hold me.

When I was much much younger I considered doing foreign aid work in medicine to help those in need. I considered it for the same altruistic reasons most people do (whatever that means). As I got older, though, I started reflecting on my own life and decided that it wasn’t for me. I have seen enough poverty, conflict, and war in my life. And maybe I should be returning a favour, but quite frankly I am satisfied with my life as it now and I don’t owe anyone but God anything. I commend those who do aid work, it is truly a great act, but I know it’s not for me.

In 2007 I returned to medical school to finish off both my rural placement and also the rest of med school. The rest of it was uneventful, except for meeting some very rare people who I found to be very decent human beings. I also took the time to learn a lot more, not so much about the medicine as I should have been doing, but rather about the organisational psychology of the industry. I learnt a lot. I got to know a lot of people, to observe countless interactions between what in any other place are just human beings but in that sphere are doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, wardsmen, administration officers, etc. and are governed by this artificial and impalpable law of hierarchy. I learnt the rules of the game. I learnt a lot about governance and of how humanity is so often absent from the human professions. Oh well, I learnt a lot and I never entered the workforce naive to these things.

And so here I am, doing the only job I have ever wanted to do. And here I am, loving not my job but the place I return to after work is finished. And life is exactly how I wanted it to be.