Poverty isn't Always Ugly
Poverty isn’t always ugly. But it is always real. I recently visited the small village of Beru in the southwest corner of Haiti. For this slightly out-of-shape professor, it’s a hard day-and-a-half hike into the mountains northwest of Les Anglais. I went up there seeking to learn more about the satellite churches that had been planted by our sister church in Les Anglais. In 20 years of sponsoring our sister church in Les Anglais, no one from our congregation had ever gone up there. I am told that I’m the third “blanc” ever to visit.
Beru perches on the ridge of a mountain peak. Its nearly 2,000 inhabitants live in a few dozen roughly 200 square foot thatched-roof or tin-roof huts that neatly line the one red clay path that is the only “road” in and out of the village. Homes here are a kind of wattle (woven wood) and daub made by combining cow dung and mud that is painted white. Some of the homes have designs drawn on the walls. All of them have little white rock borders filled with gravel around the outside. Most have some kind of flowering plants to decorate the outside. The floors are packed earth, neatly swept. As many as ten people occupy each home. No electricity. No plumbing. The nearest running water is a polluted spring that's a two hour’s walk down the mountain. Food is cooked in a community kitchen, a thatched hut with a charcoal fire constantly tended by two women.
My guide for the trip was Etienne Francois, a young Haitian man that our church had funded over a decade ago to attend school to learn agronomy and veterinarian science. Beru is part of the district that Etienne serves. As we approach the village, it is clear that Etienne is well known and well liked. By the time we enter Beru proper, Etienne is holding half a dozen softball-sized avocados — gifts from those too poor to offer anything else.
Etienne shows me the town’s two churches. The Catholic Church is an open pavilion with one crumbling wall. The rusted tin roof is held up by wooden poles. Part of the roof has collapsed. The church also serves as a community center. Kids and adults have a running game of dominoes going all day. In the evening it hosts our meeting with the town’s elders and farmer’s group. The Christian church, a satellite church planted by our sister church, is in relatively better shape. Its concrete block walls and rusted roof are intact. Inside, it is furnished with a couple of wooden benches and a rough wooden lectern that serves as a pulpit. We’re told that the preacher lives back in Les Anglais and walks ten hours every Sunday to preach a service.
Camera in hand, I was wandering around the village of Beru when I heard singing coming from around the corner. When I poked my camera around the corner of a house, the children spotted me and came running to put on an impromptu show. As the children sang, I wondered how many of them would be here on my next visit; how many would die from typhoid or dysentery caused by polluted water; how many would die of starvation; how many would be drawn to Port au Prince or Cap Hatien looking for work only to end up victims of the sex trafficking trade or lured into drug-related gang activity.
A little further down the road is the government-built school. I’m aghast at what is not there. It’s a scene right out of Greg Mortensen’s book, Three Cups of Tea. The tin roof pavilion is supported by concrete pillars and a partial wall. The floor is dirt. When I ask, I’m told that there are no materials, no books and no teachers for first through sixth graders. They simply sit by grade and talk to one another. The older children look after the younger.
That night I’m offered the master bedroom in the village leader’s house as my own. It’s roughly 12 feet square and Etienne tells me that it would be rude to refuse the honor. I feel guilty knowing that the rest of the family is doubled up somewhere else in town. A tarantula the size of my hand watches over me from a corner. I make sure that my mosquito netting is tucked in tight.
In the morning the village leader’s wife gives us a “walking farewell.” She walks us to the edge of the village, chattering all the way, giving Etienne messages to pass on to other people. Just before she turns back, she hands Etienne another of the huge avocados as a going-away gift. She takes my hand in the almost intimate way that Haitians do when friends chat, kisses me on the cheek European style — another Haitian custom — and through Etienne tells me, “we live in abject poverty. We know that. But when you have no choice, then you must choose to be happy.” As we head back down the mountain, I feel like I’ve just been blessed.
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Comments
David- I really enjoyed your
David-
I really enjoyed your article. It reminded me of a short term missions trip I took about 17 years ago to a town called Pichelin in Dominica. I expected to see poverty, but I did not expect to see the bright, happy faces of those living in poverty. They all loved being photographed and filmed like the kids in your video and my team and I also received a farewell like the one you mentioned. It was a great experience and a brilliant way to learn a culture.
Attitude
Attitude means so much in life. These village people are aware of the poverty they live in but they choose, nonetheless, to be happy with life. I think God expects that of everyone no matter the conditions. We are fortunate enough to escape the poverty that is seen in so many other countries around the world. However, we can take great satisfaction in knowing that some of our tax money and some of our personal contributions are going to help people in many of these remote locations. Jesus tells us in the Bible that the poor will always be with us. We owe it to our fellow men and women on this globe to at least reduce that poverty as much as possible. casino
Lovely story, but
Reading this, I can't help but wonder about the ways we define poverty. We in the US can surround ourselves with as many meaningless objects as we can buy, watch television and be "entertained" for all the hours we are not at work, but so many of us are unhappy. Is it because we are disconnected from one another and spend most of our time working so that we can buy more stuff? Meanwhile, these people who have so little "choose to be happy." I feel like there is an assumption on the part of many Americans that people who are unable to buy things are in desperate need of help. Do these people have enough to eat? What does it matter if they don't have indoor plumbing? (Urine is good for plants and feces can be composted into fertilizer.) Electricity is not a necessity - emperors, kings, and czars lived without it for thousands of years - it is a modern convenience. Obviously the lack of access to clean water, basic health care and maybe education (is it necessary for life in this village?) should be helped if possible. But the impact these people are having on the earth is probably a fraction of that of a similar sized American town, and they probably feel much more connected to one another as a community than the American counterpart. It seems to me that these people are not so 'poor' as we might assume them to be. They have homes, family, food, friends, and most of all, happiness. And aren't these the things that people value above all else in life?
Hi Sammie, You are so right
Hi Sammie,
You are so right and I am amazed at the resiliency of people living in conditions that you and I would never tolerate. The danger is that appearances can be deceiving. While these children, and most of the villagers I met, appeared happy, the chances were very high that 50 percent of the toddlers in the film will be dead by age five. Even the adults who survive childhood will suffer all their lives from various ailments. Most will live only to age fifty or so.
One thing bothers me. While Americans are demonstrably the most generous givers in the world, it is not the giving that really helps these people. To borrow another Biblical concept, it is better to teach a [person] to fish, rather than simply giving them a fish. I would much rather see us teaching others to help themselves. I know from my own visits, that Haitians don't really want handouts. They consistently asked me to teach them how to do things. In fact, I'm hoping to go back after the New Year to fulfill some requests for seminars in all sorts of topics. Thanks for writing.
Hi Kimberly, Thank you for
Hi Kimberly,
Thank you for the kind words. I've traveled a bit in my day. The poverty wherever I was, was something that just did not catch my attention because I was focused on other business. Thankfully, my current occupation allows me a chance to really see and appreciate the world in which others live. And I'm blessed to be able to help in a small way each time I visit.
Hi Rachel, and thank you for
Hi Rachel, and thank you for your thought-provoking comments.
What is important or necessary all depends on perspective, I suppose. During the Haitian presidential elections of 2006, one of the few sources of news in rural Haiti about the election turnout and results came through radios that, often as not, were powered by stringing wires to a truck battery. So is the electricity or the radio a convenience or a necessity?
The rural custom in the evening, because there is no power for lights, is to sit outside in the dark and chat with neighbors and friends. Certainly I would agree that this builds and reinforces community connection. My evening chats with my host are probably memories I will cherish for a long time. But when our truck threw a fan belt an hour out of the nearest village, I sure was glad that my host was able to use his cell phone to call for someone to deliver a new fan belt on his motor scooter. Does technology connect or disconnect us?
Indoor plumbing is admittedly a convenience. It is no fun to trek to a rusty corrugated steel outhouse, shoo away whatever vermin are lurking in and around the area, and sit quite exposed over a disease-infested pit of excrement and urine. I’ll take indoor plumbing any day.
Sure, urine and feces can be composted for fertilizer… if one is taught how to do this.
Is education a necessity for life in the village? Maybe not. But without education, there is no hope of ever escaping poverty. In fact, education is so important that thousands of Haitians leave the country every year seeking an education and a better life. Most don’t return. A 2007 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report noted that Haiti loses 80 percent of their university-educated people every year.
You asked, “Do they have enough to eat?” A New York Times article chronicling the food riots of 2008 proclaimed, “Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti's presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and police. Hunger sent the country's prime minister packing.” Every year, an estimated 38,000 Haitian children under the age of five die — almost one out of three because of malnutrition. If the child manages to survive past five, his or her expected life span is not even 50 years. Take a close look at the little boy who wanders into the lower right portion of the video. Though he dances and smiles, most of the day he laid listlessly on the dirt floor of his home. He is starving and he is infected, as are most rural Haitians, with intestinal parasites that distend his belly and give the impression that he is well fed. He is not.
In truth, I hope viewers saw the irony in both the video and the title. Poverty isn’t always ugly, but it is still poverty, no matter how it is defined.
There are definitely a few
There are definitely a few issues to consider and discuss relating poverty. In reading Muhammad Yunus' book "Creating a World Without Poverty". He felt, and I agree, that the definition of poverty isn't going to be the same from country to country. For Bangladesh the Grameen Bank developed there own definition of poverty for their internal purposes and to measure impact over time.
Many organization attempt to place a dollar amount of income/day to determine poverty, we've heard the $2.00 per day used frequently. Income isn't a solid method because it doesn't factor variables outside of money. Location and access to natural resources for instance are variables that change the need for money, or an individuals dependence upon it.
Bottom line, I think it's important to realize that poverty can't be defined the same way in every community we visit. Poverty includes physical need and extends into the mindset of individuals and how they view the world around them. It's also important to be culturally sensitive when working with people around the world. Sure, we have it pretty good here in the U.S. but we have problems too. We shouldn't seek to cookie cut our cultural values everywhere we go.
Poverty in NYC-Supply a Thanksgiving Feast
Hi,
My name is Jackie, I work with Here's Life Inner City NYC (www.hlicnyc.org).
In New York, poverty is pretty harsh though, and not so pleasant in the winter!
From now until November 11th, HLIC New York is trying to raise enough money to sponsor 7,000 Boxes of Love for families in need. The food is delivered to hungry families just in time for Thanksgiving. Each Box of Love feeds a family of six and includes a ham or chicken along with vegetables, potatoes, juice, yams, apple or cranberry sauce, bread, fruit, dessert, and more (http://bit.ly/gBu8Q). Thank-you for your blessings!
Warm Wishes,
Jackie (for HLIC NYC)
Facebook: HLIC NYC
Twitter: HLIC NYC
ECONOMIC RECESSION HAS MADE THE LIFE OF MANY PATHETIC
Economic recession is yet to conclude,but the worst is over.It has left thousands of poor people jobless adding to this, the global food price rise has made their condition miserable.Thousands of workers particularly in the unorganised sector are let off.This has directly hit,particularly to the lower middle class people.poor People are becoming poor and rich are growing rich day by day.There is a general fear that the percentage of poor mass might go up.this can make the matter worse for the developing countries.I give a call to all the sections of the society to join hands with the government and non governmental organisations to eradicate poverty from the world.
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