levels of poverty

It seems to me that life in the city is not so bad.  There is poverty.  People live in little one room houses made of mud or brick, where everything they own is in sight.  They cook over a little charcoal burner outside, or inside when it rains too hard.  There may be only one bed for 5 people but usually there’s a bed.  The floor may be mud or dried cement but it’s flat and they keep it clean, as clean as possible.  Roofs may be a little tin covering but still a covering, or if straw covered with sticks as well.

However, today I took another trip outside Mwanza to the town of Magu.  It’s more of a village area. There, ordinary life is again different.  Poverty is more severe.  It means partial straw roofs that give many openings for rain.  It means stepping onto rugged dirt floors, as if you’re still walking up the pathway. It means a little room, or maybe two, that hold everything which is practically nothing and you suppose that little bit of straw in the corner is the mattress. Through ChildCARE Plus, you’re happy to see one boy with a sponge to lay on.  It means that when Kija puts on his good shirt for a picture, you still find no buttons hold it together.

And then you see the house where three sponsored children once lived but they’ve moved because some people cut off the limbs of the grandmother they lived with when they thought she was involved in witchcraft.  They hoped to kill her but she’s still alive and they still live with her, no doubt taking care of her.  However, the positive side is they still have a grandmother.  And some people think the world is over when there’s a line at the bank machine or when it takes 15 minutes to drive through Tim Horton’s or when the pastor doesn’t ask them how their week went!  To be “sheltered, clothed and feed” has different meanings for everyone and most times those who aren’t understand it better than those who are!