Is That A Fly In Your Mouth ?
- Tasting Poverty
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
One of the oddest (yuckiest ?) experience I’ve had was when I had to hold a small town meeting somewhere in a depressed area of Southeast Asia, trying to engage the locals into a little bit of public health discussion - you know, basic sanitation and hygiene and all of that stuff. It wasn’t that they couldn’t figure things out by themselves but moreso because of the fact their community lay in a less than ideal location – right beside the city garbage dump. To be quite accurate, it was the garbage dump where, for lack of other resources, they eked out a living, trying to find thrown-away materials or anything else from that growing mound to sell.
They had welcomed us earlier, and despite the irritation we had from the flies that gathered, we managed for the major portion of the day, to tend to their basic medical needs and sent what we saw as really sick kids to a tertiary facility.
So, here I was beginning a short speech before the crowd, trying to recap the event for them, hoping that when we left, there would be some kind of initiative from among them to carry on what we thought were important health safeguards.
On opening my mouth to speak, a fly (or two) suddenly made its way in, forcing me to gag and spit it out. (Oh, man , I cringe when I remember that) . Sensing some controlled laughter with the locals who had (oddly) learned to live with flies and wanting to avoid further embarrassment so as not to distract from what I wanted to say, I ventured a second attempt at getting my message out, this time with waving gesticulations from both hands to drive away the flies.
Half-way thru my sentence, this second swarm came in that forced me to spew them out and shut my mouth forever ( made me think – was it the chili sauce they served for lunch?.) There was nothing else for me to do but point to a shelter with screen doors and windows where I managed to conclude the discussion with their leaders.
How could these people live this way – in utter squalor- and still smile ? What were they – a different kind of humanoid prototype – some other species like those tubular plants living near inhabitable marine volcanic geysers that fed on sulfuric bacteria? No, they were just like you and me – with the same faults and dreams, but they had to carry on every day of their lives living with these flies.
I know, you’ll probably say, the problems are deeply rooted, but that’s not the point. The point is , it’s easy for us to understand poverty – on a dramatic acute scale, like when we have disasters like tsunamis hitting the poor who have the barest of resources, but to understand poverty on a chronic scale (which is actually worse),it’s something we’d just rather avoid thinking about. For me , I guess, I had to taste it to understand and remember it.
There were other things to understand about poverty. Like when we visited a hut (room?) where you couldn’t even stand nor sit but you had to squat so as not to hit the roof. There in that floor area the size of six large suitcases, I went in to greet the homeowners, a newly wed couple and their kid who seemed happy to have me as their guest. I was surprised to see how the cramped area could provide living, kitchen and bedroom quarters for the three of them (bathroom facilities had to be provided by a communal faucet they snuck into outside early in the morning to do the bathroom comforts we’re so used to). I complemented them on how neat and clean they kept their quarters, despite the space. When I asked when and how he built his family home, he told me no, he was just renting it (“Whattt ??!”, I said to myself, “Renting this sh_thole ??) What were they – rats ? I was careful not to blurt it out, of course. I just remember muttering...’hhmm real estate gets a different slant in these parts of the globe. The last part was when they offered me a bottle of coke and started to cook an opened can of corned beef that I knew they had been saving for some important occasion. I hope they didn’t think it impolite, but I refused, feigning being late for another schedule and leaving them with some of the donations generous folks from around the globe extended .
I understood that to be poor you had to be resilient and you had to smile a lot in order to offer hope to those around you, which was the only way out.
I also understood how vulnerable they could be to manipulators of every kind. (remember the rent ?) Who was it who said that Poverty breeds Terrorism ? Nothing could be truer. To this day a lot of people still have difficulty seeing this connection. I can’t blame some commentators who keep saying that the Tsunami donations in this part of the globe gave more of a Bang for our Buck for showing the Muslim world American values and democracy in action rather than the War in Iraq.
Anyway, the last Poverty thing I wanted to stress was that when you actually get out of your shell of comforts and reach out to other people, it changes you and your perspective. You have enriched your ideas. Compare this to a Poverty of ideas of the couch potato who hollers “ Nuke ‘em!” before his TV set. That guy doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about and as I told you in my previous blog on” Lost Tribes”, it’s so easy for politicians to manipulate this situation. To strike a closer analogy for brothers (and sisters) in uniform, you have to experience War to understand War. And when you finally do understand War , and have to prepare for it, you do it having in mind not only the accomplishment of the mission but also developing the strategy that would minimize exposing your forces from the horrors of war ‘coz you know it so well. Well, what happens when guys who haven’t really experienced a war plans out the war ? There you have it – Poverty of Ideas because there was self-imposed poverty of experience.
It would do well, if you’re a parent and you have a son or daughter who’s nudging you for an educational exposure time abroad, not to send them to France , Switzerland or any of those glitzy places, they can do that on their honeymoon or 25th Anniversary or whenever else. Send them to the poor areas, of course in the safest way possible and there are a lot of institutions ensuring that. That’ll be the most useful education they won’t forget. It would also help for the future, in minimizing the arrogance we do witness around here.
Augghh…this getting too tense. and my feet are killing me. Tomorrow, we trudge to another location .Quick, somebody give me a mike. How did that song go again?…”Stars shining up above you….”
They had welcomed us earlier, and despite the irritation we had from the flies that gathered, we managed for the major portion of the day, to tend to their basic medical needs and sent what we saw as really sick kids to a tertiary facility.
So, here I was beginning a short speech before the crowd, trying to recap the event for them, hoping that when we left, there would be some kind of initiative from among them to carry on what we thought were important health safeguards.
On opening my mouth to speak, a fly (or two) suddenly made its way in, forcing me to gag and spit it out. (Oh, man , I cringe when I remember that) . Sensing some controlled laughter with the locals who had (oddly) learned to live with flies and wanting to avoid further embarrassment so as not to distract from what I wanted to say, I ventured a second attempt at getting my message out, this time with waving gesticulations from both hands to drive away the flies.
Half-way thru my sentence, this second swarm came in that forced me to spew them out and shut my mouth forever ( made me think – was it the chili sauce they served for lunch?.) There was nothing else for me to do but point to a shelter with screen doors and windows where I managed to conclude the discussion with their leaders.
How could these people live this way – in utter squalor- and still smile ? What were they – a different kind of humanoid prototype – some other species like those tubular plants living near inhabitable marine volcanic geysers that fed on sulfuric bacteria? No, they were just like you and me – with the same faults and dreams, but they had to carry on every day of their lives living with these flies.
I know, you’ll probably say, the problems are deeply rooted, but that’s not the point. The point is , it’s easy for us to understand poverty – on a dramatic acute scale, like when we have disasters like tsunamis hitting the poor who have the barest of resources, but to understand poverty on a chronic scale (which is actually worse),it’s something we’d just rather avoid thinking about. For me , I guess, I had to taste it to understand and remember it.
There were other things to understand about poverty. Like when we visited a hut (room?) where you couldn’t even stand nor sit but you had to squat so as not to hit the roof. There in that floor area the size of six large suitcases, I went in to greet the homeowners, a newly wed couple and their kid who seemed happy to have me as their guest. I was surprised to see how the cramped area could provide living, kitchen and bedroom quarters for the three of them (bathroom facilities had to be provided by a communal faucet they snuck into outside early in the morning to do the bathroom comforts we’re so used to). I complemented them on how neat and clean they kept their quarters, despite the space. When I asked when and how he built his family home, he told me no, he was just renting it (“Whattt ??!”, I said to myself, “Renting this sh_thole ??) What were they – rats ? I was careful not to blurt it out, of course. I just remember muttering...’hhmm real estate gets a different slant in these parts of the globe. The last part was when they offered me a bottle of coke and started to cook an opened can of corned beef that I knew they had been saving for some important occasion. I hope they didn’t think it impolite, but I refused, feigning being late for another schedule and leaving them with some of the donations generous folks from around the globe extended .
I understood that to be poor you had to be resilient and you had to smile a lot in order to offer hope to those around you, which was the only way out.
I also understood how vulnerable they could be to manipulators of every kind. (remember the rent ?) Who was it who said that Poverty breeds Terrorism ? Nothing could be truer. To this day a lot of people still have difficulty seeing this connection. I can’t blame some commentators who keep saying that the Tsunami donations in this part of the globe gave more of a Bang for our Buck for showing the Muslim world American values and democracy in action rather than the War in Iraq.
Anyway, the last Poverty thing I wanted to stress was that when you actually get out of your shell of comforts and reach out to other people, it changes you and your perspective. You have enriched your ideas. Compare this to a Poverty of ideas of the couch potato who hollers “ Nuke ‘em!” before his TV set. That guy doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about and as I told you in my previous blog on” Lost Tribes”, it’s so easy for politicians to manipulate this situation. To strike a closer analogy for brothers (and sisters) in uniform, you have to experience War to understand War. And when you finally do understand War , and have to prepare for it, you do it having in mind not only the accomplishment of the mission but also developing the strategy that would minimize exposing your forces from the horrors of war ‘coz you know it so well. Well, what happens when guys who haven’t really experienced a war plans out the war ? There you have it – Poverty of Ideas because there was self-imposed poverty of experience.
It would do well, if you’re a parent and you have a son or daughter who’s nudging you for an educational exposure time abroad, not to send them to France , Switzerland or any of those glitzy places, they can do that on their honeymoon or 25th Anniversary or whenever else. Send them to the poor areas, of course in the safest way possible and there are a lot of institutions ensuring that. That’ll be the most useful education they won’t forget. It would also help for the future, in minimizing the arrogance we do witness around here.
Augghh…this getting too tense. and my feet are killing me. Tomorrow, we trudge to another location .Quick, somebody give me a mike. How did that song go again?…”Stars shining up above you….”
