Story #5: Rain

I’ve racked my brains on certain nights on what it truly means to be in a state of poverty. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is so much more complex than I had ever previously imagined. And living in America, I didn’t really imagine anything of it, to be honest. The most I thought about it was the one time I gave the homeless guy outside my apartment in San Francisco some old blankets and comforters during the winter. Even then I think it’s more thought than most? No one really likes to think about something so sad. The blanket thing was a quick fix to make me feel good about myself. Finally this cold homeless dude can sleep warm just for one night. Happy ending. Forget about it the next day when I go to work.

Because I have never lived in a state of poverty I am able to afford this pleasant existential contemplation. I don’t want to sound like I am spiting myself for being privileged, but I guess I am, because it’s hard not to when you’re surrounded by this.  I can do the what-if? pity thing because I haven’t ever experienced starvation or being seriously ill but resisting going to the old busted hospital clinic because I can’t afford tylenol.

I keep looking at my neighbors’ lives and comparing it to mine. “What is it that I have that they don’t?”  It bothers me when I come to the harsh conclusion that I have a whole lot more than they do. I hate discriminating against people. I hate making people feel like they are beneath others. But the fact that I was born where I was, just by birthright, has given me so many more opportunities. Why is that? It’s not fair

The other day, the old owner of one of my current dogs (whom I retrieved from a life and death situation) was stumbling drunk from drinking liters of moonshine in the rain. Her two younger daughters were hanging out in my house with Bota. I’d say they’re about 3 and 10 tops. Both look like little smurfs to me. Not more than three feet tall, both of them. The younger one, Manitra, always comes to my house in her little pigtails and says, “CLUMPF! CLEMPF!” and giggles and runs away because she can’t say my name right.

I’ve never been a big fan of their mother ever since I saw the way she treated animals. Needless to say, all the dogs she’s ever had are dead. Not one puppy has made it longer than a month. Her husband usually drunkenly bashes their little puppy heads in with a shovel when he’s back in the village (he lives in the capital for work). Anyhow, this lady is usually drunk everyday. She talks gibberish when she’s drunk. She has a bad “reputation”.

It is pouring rain and it’s about 5pm, everyone is home from work and all the kids are playing in my house while their parents prepare dinner (if they have any). She leaves the epicerie, or store, where she’s been drinking heavily and stumbles along the path home. Shortly after making about ten clumsy steps, she falls in the mud and rolls down the hill where people’s cassava fields are. Her clothes are soaked and dirty, and the rain is slamming.

A bunch of kids at this point come running into my room towards the window to watch her in the distance. They start pointing and laughing because she looks like a fool and and is too incoherent to stand up. It’s always a spectacle when a drunk is around, sometimes the kids will slap them in the face and pull on their ears when they’re passed out on some random person’s yard. But this lady was being belligerent to everyone who was trying to help her up.

So finally she sloppily pulls herself up, walks about five feet, and falls on the ground again. The kids start hysterically laughing. Startled, I suddenly look down at Loba, her oldest ten year old daughter. Tears are pouring down her face as she helplessly watches her wasted mother among the sea of laughter and naïve criticism from her less than ten year old counterparts.

I didn’t really know what to do, so I scolded all the kids and kicked them out of my house except for Loba, her younger sister, Bota, and their cousin, Rija. I picked Loba up and just held her close to my heart. She seemed relieved to have someone hold her so she held onto me too. I told Rija to take the two girls home, they didn’t need to see their mom like this anymore. He said no they’ll probably sleep with his family tonight. Their mom can be unpredictable when she’s been drinking, he explains.

I’ve learned that you must pick and choose which projects would most likely be sustainable. It takes a lot of money, work, and communication to get things running correctly. And even with those variables accounted for, things still manage to fall apart.

The reality is there will most likely be no one who will help Loba in her lifetime. I know I won’t. It is impossible to help her and change her life given the context of her toxic family and the limited physical and social infrastructure in Madagascar.

So like I said I’ve racked my brain over and over mulling on what poverty is. I don’t know what the textbook definition is, but children like her, though they break your heart, are the face of it.