Sunday, December 11, 2005
If I ever go Orissa (india) for next year's mission trip, I think I will probably cry my heart out everyday. Ahem. No, it would not be due to homesickness. Rather, it'll probably be because of the poverty in the world. Once again, no. I am not going to wish for
"World Peace" like Miss Congeniality. It's just really heart-wrenching to know how the poor really struggle to survive.
My dad just returned from his business trip in Bombay with much things to say - including how the camera battery went flat when he reached the most interesting place a city tour.. HAI YO! CHARGE THE BATTERY LAH!!! =D
This was one of the incidents he told us about. He was at this place called the Gateway of India. There were alot of poor people standing around watching him and his colleagues as they went admiring the stone wall (is it?). Of course a few tried to ask for money, but common sense says don't give anything because give something of value to one person, the rest will swarm around you just like bees swarm around the honey comb. When he was leaving the place, he suddenly realised he was being tailed by a little child, one who has probably just learnt to totter. Chased he called it, my dad tried to move away from this child but the child wouldn't give up! Then, my dad realised what the child was after - his 2/3 filled mineral water bottle! My dad felt that it was quite stupid to hold back a bottle of water so he gave it to the little child. Once the little child got it, he or she (he doesn't remember), immediately zoomed back happily to his or her mother to present the bottle.
When I heard this, I heart really broke for this little child. I mean, a child in India can be actually so please when only receiving a water bottle which has been drunk from while anyone of us might be throwing away a bottle of water, thinking that we can afford another bottle. Needless to say, if I hadn't been in public, I would have cried.
Imagine what I would do if I go to Orissa. (If I am allowed to, but argh..I'm not)
Come to think of it, I shall relate another sad story, from my previous lit teacher. During one of her visits to another country where poverty is rampant, she noticed that there were many young children, some of them actually lame or have some physical disabilties all begging for money. As much as she was so sorely tempted to give them something, she knew she could not. Why? Many of these children, she was told, were actually working for the syndicates. What happened was that these children were forced to beg money from tourists. Whatever money they collected was not for themselves to keep. Instead, this money is taken away by the syndicates and the children are given only a meagre portion of money. They practically receive
peanuts! Sometimes, in order to gain the tourists' sympathy and even more money, the syndicates will maim them on purpose. The pain the little ones go through! And WAIT. These syndicates are
RICH.So you tell me, how can I not shed tears?
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