Welcome to the real world. Thats how I am feeling.
I guess for me there were a few keys things that happened that made me realize alot about poverty. It was nothing the way I imagined it. Im so overwelmed with all the vived memories that I can't remember what it was like to think about poverty with out seeing it and feeling it first hand.
When we first arrived in Honduras we flew into San Pedro Sula and it was late but I could still see many homes and people.. it looked as though these people were the poorest of the poor and amungst them scattered were Huge billboards for energizer batteries and Coke..."why?" i thought, would any one waste their money advertizing to the poor? We left San Pedro the next morning and headed for Yoro... for the next three days we saw things, met familys, children who lived through the huricans and were more happy than i will probably ever be or know. They had no clean water, couldn't go to school, some had a horrible fatal disease called Chagas, some lost their homes, and some had no work. WV helped these communities through different projects funded by sponsorship from here in Canada. The difference was beautiful. We had to drive up mountains , got stuck in mud one day, went to a school and told stories to the children, gave out note books and pens and toys and stickers, met a women who is going to die of Chagas while her young children looked on, drove through rivers... past river beds that used to be lined with communities until the hurricans..then returned to San Pedro Sula 3 days later to look at those same homes and people we saw the first night almost through different eyes. They weren't living in poverty..they had water, electricity access to education, probably most of them had jobs in the city and had access to transpostation. Going back to the city was odd.. how could these people live just 2 hours away from this poverty and not care. Then it got worse. We went to down town San Pedro Sula.. i felt like i was in Halifax. It was even bigger and had more businesses and people than Halifax.. the people had beautiful homes and cars and jobs and went on vacations ... and could care less about the people just around the corner. I thought how, how is that possible? Then I remembered how many times we just turn the channel when we see the poverty on tv.. how many times we hear about disasters and about scary statistics about how many children die each day due to hunger. And we too just turn away. It has become so common to hear about thousands of people dying on the news. But something that struck me one day while playing tag with this sweet little boy in one of the housing projects wv set up.. they are all different people. With their own personalities, familys, friends, goals and purposes. Favorite colors and fav food. After seeing so many wv programs on tv , along with amnesty international and foster parents plan.. samaritans purse and the list goes on.. you lose touch with the fact that every face is different. Every story is different , and for every one you hear about there are thousands more that will never be heard. Just like as we drove to see the different places and people, we passed thousands going through their own difficulties. One things that shocked me was to find out one of the reasons they have no money. These people pay tax, 12%, just like you and me, the only difference is that the gov owes the World Bank money, so 50% on the budget each year goes to the world bank, but because of the high crazy interest rate they will never pay this loan off . It isen't even a possibility. Its the most frustrating thing i learned. All this crazyness because some guys want to keep getting richer of and age old loan that has been paid back, minus the intrest, 5 times over. Who are these people and what is wrong with them? Maybe this sounds funny, but really. Its just stupid.
So ya it was a great week and i feel completly positive about everything i saw but its all a bit hard to talk about. I have been having night mares every night since i have been home, although the last two night i slept through the night. Im sure this will all continue to sink in as I talk to people and realize what i saw on this "overseas adventure".. I hope you take the time to check out my photos and thanks for visiting. Peace star |
