Waking up we brush our teeth and start complaining about everything we wish we had and never got and everything we have but can’t appreciate. It’s sad but true, like the many other sad realities, that there are so many others who dream of a life like ours.
Food, shelter, clothing, medicine and education: The five basic necessities of human life, the five basic rights of every person. No matter how evil, how useless, how pathetic a person can be, these are the things they all deserve to at least get a chance to receive. Everyone has the innate right to live. All the times we had a chance to do more but didn’t- we had the chance to improve our grades, make a better living- only effort we missed to do keep us from success . All the options we don’t choose but we still have make a difference between living and surviving. To survive is to exist through outstanding difficulty. That’s the life many people out there live.
12 million lives in Southern Somalia, in regions of Kenya and Ethiopia, are all lives like ours, lives that could’ve made a difference. But these lives have been witness to droughts- droughts so bad nothing as such has been seen in the past 60 years. They are no longer living, just surviving- without their basic needs. If you saw your child die in front of your eyes in lack of medication, medication that cost $1- $1 you couldn’t afford, how would you live? Knowing that there are millions of people out there who probably throw such money, such medication and such food out of their windows, that in the bigger world people actually die because they over eat and the rate of such deaths are increasing- how would you react? To the people there waking up to such deaths, such hunger, such misery- is usual.
Famine is declared when more than 30% of a population are suffering from acute starvation- I repeat, acute. Generations of families have been born and brought up to see this as their lives and future. The world’s largest refugee camp- Dabaab refugee camp of Ethiopia, was initially created to hold 90, 000 people. These camps are now home to 440 000 people. Sad but true, generations have grown up and settled lives here. Persistent droughts that have led to death of cattle, infertility of soil and eventually this lack of food isn’t all that is to blame. Living in the 21st century, do we expect to be stopped by just lack of rain and water. Political turmoil, neglect, inflation and lack of international support has nurtured this situation. 10 children die each day of measles and cholera that are spreading through the waters, 440 000 refugees and each day this increases by 26 000 more, 125,000 abortions performed each day- 125000 lives stolen from their mothers, and hundreds still dying every day- over half of them children.
In a world where people can’t imagine life without their cell phones, iPods, internet, television, music players, and all of such man-made electronic objects that we’ve created our attachments to- is it imaginable that people, millions in numbers and not a few unnoticeable ones, are dying, have been dying and will continue to die? Because not enough people have stepped up to care? We all wake up each day with so many expectations: ‘Maybe he’ll notice me today.’ ‘Maybe I’ll get chosen to attend the partay.’ ‘Maybe I’ll get an increase on my allowance.’ So many things on our mind and at the end of the day, what? We’re sulking on how the day was just another shitty one. And while we still dwell on these thoughts, food appears on our dining tables 3 times a day, water flows down from our taps, water fills in on our jugs, the roof above protect us from heat and cold- yet at the end of the day, regrets, frustration, dissatisfaction fill our minds.
While just countable miles away, girls and boys -our age, older, younger- wake up to wish they find drinking water that doesn’t have sand in it, food that hasn’t been left by the crow, maybe today they’ll get to the front end of the line at the aid centre. And at the end of the day, if despair overshadows their hopes, when the mother has to put her ill, starving child back under the tattered blanket she inherited, who else cries for them? Who else cares? Let this not be the end of their day, let this not be the end of their life- wailing silently for pure water to run down their dry throats, solid real food to make it’s way to their ravaging tummies, Let their expressionless faces not fool you- they’ve forgotten how to show despair, they are the face of despair.
But it doesn’t have to be like that? What are we as humans if we can’t help a fellow man? Maybe we’re not rich enough for donations, wise enough for strategic assistance, old enough to provide health care as doctors, but everyone can make a difference in their own way. We can help to not decrease food supplies, help to not pollute the rain, help to increase rain fall, to not waste water, help raise awareness. We all pray: ‘Oh, God! I hope someone turns up to help them.’ And all over the world if we all do the same, will things change? Someone has to be the helper, someone has to step up, that someone should be us. Let us work towards a better world, a better future, for all in despair- not just ourselves. Let us no longer be sad and true, but bring joy into reality by being a real human. Amen.
Bibliography: CNN Witness To Famine, Guardian.co.uk, Wikipedia, UNHCR, Ignatius5453.
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