Let’s Get Real

You need to close your eyes and imagine your mother, or grandmother lying on her bed, fragile hand reaching out to pat your face. She loves you as only she can, but she is dying. All people die, but she is dying faster because she does not get enough to eat.

Beside her sits your little brother, or sister, or child who is also hungry with no prospects of relief any time soon. You want to help them so desperately. You are their only hope.

You are a very bright person, one of the best students in your school and you know that an education is the only way out of this predicament, so you work hard at it and you pay dearly for it. Schooling is not free in your world. You walk over an hour to get to school, across ground where the thorns sometimes pierce your feet and make you late. You work for less than 19 cents an hour in between studying and going to and from school, but still your loved ones are suffering. You cannot do enough. It is impossible.

Wages are low. Prices are sky high.

You are young and eager and proud, but in this country you live in, orphans are disposable. The average man eats one meal a day and you are not yet a man, but you have a man’s responsibilities.

It is one thing to be in awe of what people can over come. It is another to try and do it yourself.