If you're poor at home, you're poor everywhere

Today was about the new term, visiting schools to pay fees, and carry out termly ‘inspections’. It was also the day to accept this is the rainy season. Last night’s thunder rocked our building and rattled the door. Tom and Moses’s trip ‘into the field’ on the bike, was abandoned when the rains started.  I discovered the reality of a rural school in a monsoon.  However, I was told that bringing rain with me was a sign of blessing!

Now for a story.

20 month old twins, *Arthur and *Neville were abandoned by their mother, along with their 3 siblings.  When the GC local team first visited the family, they were horrified to find them living in a one-roomed ramshackle dwelling with a grass thatched roof.  They fetched water from a filthy river at the bottom of the hill, hefting it back up a steep, slippery, slope.

They had no sleeping mats. They each had one set of ragged clothes, no shoes. The father worked digging gardens, but not all the time because he had to look after the children. He didn’t make enough for food every day.  The twins were malnourished and sickly.

The local Global Care team decided to support the family, initially providing milk for the twins, and maize flour and salt for cooking. They were happy to receive soap, previously they washed themselves and their clothes in dirty river water.  They were given clothes.

Today the 3 -year-old twins are both sponsored, and are healthy, although they were terrified of me at first, having never seen a white person.  We picked them up at nursery school, where they have breakfast and lunch too.

It’s a recently opened, basic, village primary and nursery school. The compound was clean, the children seemed happy (as long as I wasn’t talking to them), the teachers friendly, and there was a good atmosphere.  

I took a football and pump as a gift, the Head Teacher bought us bottles of water as a gift. The school sponsors 2 of the twins’ siblings – their father doesn’t pay fees, but has to provide their food.  The other sibling attends a very poor school 2km away, where fees are affordable even for this father.

Their father was welcoming and happy when we visited his clean and tidy compound (I remarked how impressed I was, given my own experience of living with a husband and 3 boys). There is a kitchen, a toilet, and their house is a solid, painted mud building, with a tin roof.  All thanks to support from GC.  He has a small garden for fruit and vegetables to help feed his family.

I love visits like this – success stories of both Global Care, and sponsorship itself. The twins may be barefoot, still using dirty river water, and walk 1km to school, but their father told me Global Care had saved the twins’ lives. This family now has a proper roof, somewhere to cook, education, the father can work …. and his 5 children are all alive.

Back in the car, I felt stunned, imagining life without shoes, electricity, clean water, furniture, regular meals, and everything else I take for granted.  This problem is so big. Throughout the world, people live in abject poverty, no social services or free healthcare, no emergency accommodation. I’m so appreciative of this opportunity to remind myself of the reality of extreme poverty and vulnerability, and of the power of GC sponsorship to change, and save, lives.

Moses said today that the children at this school are all from poor families. They carry the stigma of poverty around with them and would not know how to react to me. He said to us, “If you’re poor at home, you have to be poor everywhere.”

It’s a sobering thought that while I thought I was bringing a bit of fun and excitement, for some children, I actually emphasised their poverty. Tomorrow I’m taking humility and respect (as well as footballs!).