MY FRIEND DANIEL OGEN: How He Attempts to Help the Homeless!
By Stephen Wilson, our reporter in Moscow
“Is there a life before death ? That's chalked up.
In Ballymurphy, Competence with pain,
Coherent miseries, a bite and sup,
We hug our little destiny again…”
From a poem “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing,” by Seamus Heaney
They say cats have nine lives. I can readily believe this. But when it comes to my friend Daniel Ogen, I'm baffled if I can guess how many lives he has. I'm just amazed by how he lives on! Given the number of dangers he has faced, the stars must be on his side. He has been shot at from point blank range, almost beaten to death more times than he cares to recall, almost drowned and fallen from incredible heights.
I'll just give you a few examples. Once when he was serving in the US Army he had just received his pay and was walking down the street. He told me, "I was in a foul mood. This sergeant had been tormenting all the time. I was in no mood to be pushed around by anyone. So when a guy thrust a gun into my stomach asking me for my money, I just refused and forced myself on him. He fired and I was almost killed. I still have the scar mark to prove it.” In Moscow he was badly beaten by someone who knocked him out with a bottle and robbed him.
In Alaska while he was working as a fisherman for Captain Tom. He was sent to an island to store some fish on it. Knowing that this island was inhabited by bears, he asked, "What will I do if I meet bears?" Captain Tom answered, "If bears see you, you don't move an inch. Just stand still like a statue and look them straight in the eyes.” As chance would have it he came across a family of bears which were only a hundred meters from him. He told me, "I was terrified. But I just froze and stood without moving. The mother bear saw me and just snorted at me with contempt as if to say, "You are a piece of shit that is not worth eating."
I got to know Daniel in Moscow in the early 1990's and worked and lived with him in a homeless soup kitchen. We ate, worked, and had long deep discussions about everything.
Once we were returning to his home in Moscow which was located in a rundown area of Moscow. Nobody in their right mind would want to sit down in a park at around 11 p.m. and contemplate the beauty of the universe around you--especially if this place was full of dismal, depressing and gray high rise buildings. If you are a little drunk you can do anything. I just wanted us to go straight on to his place. He stubbornly refused. He said, "Let us sit down here and talk. What are you worried about? Are you a wimp?" I replied, "We could get robbed. This is the wrong time and place." But he sat down and marveled at how beautiful the sky looked. I finally persuaded him to go home. But it was too late! I could hear two people were coming behind us and I warned Daniel, "Two guys are going to jump on us. Be prepared to fight. I broke a branch off a tree and then hit the attackers with it. They wrestled with us. It was so dark that I might have punched Daniel by mistake. For he fell straight into the mud. When one of the guys noticed I was armed with a stick he took out a flick knife. He demanded I hand over my money. So I dug into my pocket and took out about two hundred rubles. The rest of my dollars I just kept. I threw the rubles on the ground just before him. He looked at me with a mixture of incredulity and disrespect. “Is that all you have?" I replied, "Yes, I don't make much money. I am very poor. Take or leave it." He promptly picked up the money and fled. I then wondered what had happened to Daniel. I went to a rubbish skip where I found this torn railing and again came across those two thieves who were still around. I charged them with this and they fled. Then suddenly I found Daniel and swore at him. In this incident I had lost one of my shoes. He complained that I had hit him.
After this incident I understood why Daniel often encountered so much danger. But I still wondered why he was still alive. I speculated that it might have something do with his grandfather who was in the Blackfoot tribe and took him to a hill where he may have performed some magic ritual ceremony to protect him. If this was the case, it certainly worked.
Daniel Ogen always makes an indelible impression on people. He can light up any room with his charisma. He is a poet, storyteller and a person who helps the homeless. He has helped the homeless in both Russia and America. I think we are also bemused by how homeless people manage to survive on such cruel streets. We might ask, "How many lives has a homeless person?" …and "How many lives do they have before deaths?"
Seamus Heaney in one poem asked "Is there a life before death?'' Or do they and ourselves undergo some kind of death before death in the sense we are denied basic rights to develop and live well?
A lot of the homeless we met were traumatized. Many were reticent and reluctant to tell their untold stories which could be very tragic. And when they did tell their sad stories their eyes would well up, and they would break down and begin to weep. We regretted asking them how they ended up on the streets and felt we had trespassed on forbidden territory. But a lot of homeless Russians told their untold stories to Daniel. I think one of the reasons they would open up was because Daniel was blessed with a soft, sweet and soothing voice that calmed them down. He conveyed the distinct impression that he cared about them. And of course he did! He was a great listener.
During the breaks between his English lessons he came across some homeless people. He met one elderly woman and invited her into McDonalds for a meal. The poor woman told him her whole life story. She had lost her apartment because her son, a drug addict, had secretly sold the apartment to buy drugs. So she was left without a home. Her son was in prison. She told Daniel, "My son is really a good boy. It is just that he had terrible problems".
Daniel also told me how he had come across a homeless young man at a railway station in Moscow. The man was in a sorry state, and his whole physical appearance had been altered by a hard life on the streets. He had taken to drink. His aim had been to come to Moscow to find a job which would allow him to support his love at home. Unfortunately, everything went wrong. No decent job materialized. He had made a love pact with his girlfriend where they had cut a coin in half. He kept and wore one part; she kept another. When they were reunited, both halves of the coin would come together. He noticed his girlfriend was looking for him at the railway station. Since his appearance had changed so drastically, she didn't recognize him. He asked Daniel, "Could you lend me enough money to pay for my girlfriend's return ticket? I don't want her to be upset by seeing me as I am now. You can follow me and I will hand the money to her." And Daniel gave him the money to allow him to do this. But his girlfriend never discovered it was him. So they parted forever.
Daniel had his own way of helping the homeless. He told me, "If you want to help the homeless you should try and keep things as simple as possible and not make things complicated. If you see some homeless people, why not just come up to them and hand them some food, clothes, and needed items? What could be any simpler? Why do you need to build a big charity organization which employs all this administration and always asks for official permission to do this or that? Just do things spontaneously."
Doing small scale projects such as organizing a soup kitchen or just turning up to the homeless people and giving them food, love and attention was so important. What strikes you about the homeless in Moscow is how they feel that people are against them, and don't like or respect them. Others tend to look down on them. What volunteers can do is at least give them their time ,love and friendship. This is important because so many of them lack this love and affection. Of course, feeding, clothing and providing a place in a shelter is not going to solve this problem of homelessness. You need a bold campaign that fights for 'Housing First.' But as volunteers we should befriend and assist them in every way we can. Even the small seeming insignificant acts might have some imperceptible results.
Once I was going up the stairs in the Moscow metro with my Scots friend when a man came tumbling down on us. We had to both stand him up. When we reached the top, we noticed that there was a young schoolgirl who greeted him and asked how he was getting on. Other homeless people were there also. So we saw this young schoolgirl giving this guy and others food and pleasantly talking to him. I think Daniel Ogen would have been moved by this strange meeting.
Whenever I think of Daniel, I think of his sweet and generous ways. How many lives of homeless people he has touched with his kindness!