Harsh Realities

April 16 (this was written in my journal Easter Sunday evening…..)

Tonight as I walked along a dark city road we came upon a young woman asking for money for food. As I turned to look closer my eyes and my heart fell to see her young child tied to her back – my hand grabbed cedis and put them in hers as I said, “God bless you and your beautiful child.” I then stroked that baby’s cheek and asked God to let this child grow up healthy and strong. We then proceeded to a taxi and a restaurant- I had lost my appetite.
It’s not uncommon to see crippled and deformed people – an old man, legs crossed Indian style frozen in position, arms extended with flip flops on his hands for they are now his feet; a neck scarred, fused to a face where a chin used to be before the fire melted it; a hand bent backwards from polio; a foot twisted sideways from a break never properly mended.
A day’s work is tiring, people sleep wherever their weariness overtakes them: on narrow wooden benches; on cement walls, underneath their broken down truck where it is shady and safe (?); on the road with the curb as your pillow- these can be seen any time, day or night.
In the dark night a candle burns lighting up the expressionless face of a young lady selling the last of her food- wares of the day- one child tied to her back, one child sleeping on her lap and another on the ground-her feet his pillow. Her job is not a 9 to 5 one.
As challenging as daily life is, I have never heard anyone complain or say they deserve better-they live each day and pray for the light of the next. For most there is no thought of future- it takes enough to get through one day without thinking of the next. This is a developing country; a country moving toward middle income status by 2015. I pray they make it. I pray they muckle on to their values and bring them along into a comfortable way of life- a life of enough.