Everyone has seen those charity commercials. You know the ones with the destitute child staring blankly into the camera while a foreigner stands next to them telling you how difficult and unhappy their lives are and stating how much happier this child will be if you donate 20 US dollars to help provide them with shelter, food and clean drinking water. This is the face of poverty. Broken helpless people. Or is it?
Poverty is a worldwide concern. You can observe poverty in some of the richest nations in the world and in some of the poorest alike. Poverty can be easily masked, though. There are a large number of Americans living in poverty and many children are going to sleep with empty stomachs but you may not always be able to identify those living with such circumstances. Wherever you go in the world, poverty is looming nearby, whether you are aware of it or not. That's perhaps the most starkly different aspect of being in a westernized country and a non westernized country. Poverty is not stowed away behind homeless shelters or in the dining areas of soup kitchens. Those living in impoverished conditions in third world countries are not hidden. India is one of those places where the poorest and the richest are neighbors. Views from extravagant lofts showcase those in abject situations. Luxury flats peering down on slum cities, built from scrap metal and found materials. It's symbolic, the poorest are always at the bottom, looking up and wondering what it's like to be way up there at the top. My first month in India was spent with a fairly middle class family who hosted volunteers to work in their school and orphanage. The orphanage and school were located in a slum town. All of the children attending were coming from poverty unimaginable to foreigners. I was taken deep into the village with my host father to see how these sweet radiant children were living. The buildings were made of brick, the houses being big enough for one bed and a bit of walking room. The bathrooms, situated at the front of the houses, were empty little rooms with a hole leading to the outside of the house. This means that there is no running water or proper waste storage. Human waste from every home is being sloshed through a hole in the wall, directly into the street where children and women are roaming, barefoot. It was hard to see. They had no running water, no electricity and things were seemingly grim. I was caught up in my mind thinking of how hard their lives must be and then I realized what was happening around me. The women were washing clothes in a group, talking loudly and laughing. The children were running all over, playing and giggling. The men were smoking cigarettes and there was some apparent banter within the circle. I was so humbled by how much joy there was. These people were deeply happy, in a way that even I didn't know. So although they may not have all of their basic needs met, they are far happier than pretty much everyone I know. We have all of our necessities taken care of and then some. What is it we are missing that they have managed to find? This is where things get complex in my mind. Everyone deserves a roof over their heads, warmth in the cold months, nourishing food, clean drinking water and access to free education and healthcare. These are basic human rights. Yet their rights are being forgotten. People from other countries are bringing them aid but whatever is being brought is not replenished. So once their supply runs out they then return back to the position they were in before. They become reliant on others to bring things in for them and in turn they are kept in poverty. The government is not interested in saving the millions in poor circumstances. It's every man for himself. So how do we put an end to poverty? How do we stop a problem that has existed since the beginning of time? Education. Teaching the children to read and write. Teaching the community how to purify water, how to grow food sustainably, how to manage their waste so that they live healthier lives. As the saying goes, you can bring a man a fish and he eats for one day. You can teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. The truth is, though, they are far wealthier than the richest people in the world.
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Westerners love animals. We especially love baby animals. We want to save them all and we make youtube videos crying about how much we love them. In India, I don't know if they see it the same way. I cringe when I think about stories people told me. Stories of puppies heads being crushed with bricks or being drowned. It's unfamiliar to me and that kind of cruelty in the US is unacceptable.
It's India, It's an entirely different place. Dogs are like gangs. They roam the streets in packs at night looking for food and causing trouble. There were times that I was far more afraid of dogs when I was walking at night than I was of people. The chances of a puppy surviving in India are slim. Most of the people are struggling to survive and have barely enough to keep their families alive, let alone a dog. The family I was staying with during my first month in India had a son. The son got a puppy from one of his friends and begged his parents to keep it. They let him keep it and us volunteers got to take care of it. He was scared of this tiny puppy. This puppy was very sick and Ann really took to it. After only a couple of days our host family decided Ann should take it to the dog rescue because their son didn't want it anymore. Ann went back to visit the puppy a week later. It was even more sick than before and was not being cared for so she brought it back to stay with us. We taught it how to drink and fed it anything we could scrounge up. We kind of knew it was going to die. We at least wanted to make it's last days pleasant and full of love. Ann was holding the puppy during it's final moments. She buried it somewhere. It was better off dead. The life it would have faced as a street dog in India would have been difficult. Street dogs get run over and face all kinds of nasty abuse. Sometimes life is depressing. RIP puppy. All dogs go to heaven. K is visiting. We all go out to a club. Clubbing is rare for us, everyone is drinking and letting loose. Fern is twirling Donna around in a circle on the dance floor. He is dancing passionately but it's looking a little aggressive. He is drunk. We are all drunk.
A fight breaks out in the club and they immediately shut this place down. They have no tolerance for violence and when things escalate the night comes to an abrupt ending. We have to leave the club. We can't find Fern. Mav walks into the bathroom and he is passed out on the floor. Mav takes a photo before waking him up. "I was just pretending" Hindus worship cows. You may not know anything else about Hinduism but chances are you know about the sacredness of cows. Cows are roaming around the streets in India like they are meant to be there and who am I to say they aren't. Farm animals aren't potty trained. So cow shit turns the already hectic roadway into a mine field. I believe this is where the expression holy shit came from.
I remember this guy telling me that some hindus use the poop as some kind of face mask and even eat it, amongst other things. I've never had a cow poop patty and I think I'd rather keep it that way. Who knows though, it may taste exactly like chicken. Mav was notorious for stepping in cow shit. His constant cow poop encounters have caused him to take on an incredibly special energy. Cow poop baba. In most cases rats are a nuisance. If you are a rat in the USA and you come into contact with humans, you are probably going to die. Unless you are a pet rat, but usually if you're a rat at a pet store someone is going to buy you and feed you to their snake. Rats have it hard.
If I was a rat, I would like to be born in India. If I wasn't born in the rat temple, I would take the voyage there to live a life where I am worshipped. Ganesha is pictured with rats, because of this depiction the Hindus have set up a temple for the rats. The rat temple is a legitimate temple. This means that if you want to go in you have to take off your shoes and socks. Your skin is directly touching the building which in some way creates a feeling of connectedness. It's a holy experience. Unless of course you are going into the rat temple. Rats have free reign. They are scurrying like rats do, peeing and pooping all over the place. The floor is stained yellow with rat piss and little brown turds are littering the marble floors. You are walking along trying to be present in this moment but all you can think about is the amount of piss on your feet, the overwhelming stench, and imagining the rats crawling above you falling from the ceiling and landing in your hair. You reach a moment where you are looking around at all of these rats being fed milk and rice and you suddenly feel the profoundness of this experience. You're standing in awe of what you are witnessing. You're taken. Then a rat runs across your foot and you panic, screaming all the way out of the temple. |
WARNING:
Usage of tasteful profanity which you might not consider tasteful. Some stories are vulgar. Colorful language and descriptions included. Reading these stories may cause you to become offended, appalled and uneasy. You have been warned. Read with caution. Categories
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