Dedicate Home (Sharing Observed Poverty) 5

A Personal and Observed Poverty: A Narrative (Part 5)

For two hours I did nothing but take short naps and stare blankly into the view beyond the door. Beyond the door was a small eskinita, and across that was a small G.I. sheet (yero) structure like the one I was in. I saw slippered feet dash, and market baskets being lugged around. I heard the loud shouts of the men, the incessant chattering of the women, and the playful screams and laughter of the children. The scent of murky water mixed with laundry detergent encompassed the area, and an eerie sort of unnatural humidity filled the air. Sunlight contrary to what most believe, was abundant. Although their homes were compacted together leaving only passage ways serving as pseudo roads; as none of the structures were above two stories, sunlight shone brightly within the area. It was hot, truly, but it was precisely this humidity and distinct smell of detergent that stuck best in my mind. This place was the forge, as it was the wash basin.

It is a dynamic community of hundreds if not thousands of people who were there not by choice, but rather out of the necessity of living. Their poverty is the path they think they must endure. It is the supposed cleansing of their souls so they may one day join their God. That was the paradigm of my students, and it must have been the paradigm of most of the God fearing in the community as well. It is precisely that point that made me realize that Karl Marx was right. Religion, as in the case of Catholicism in area 8, is truly merely an opiate of the people. If they truly believe that God would allow them to be tested by poverty, as a prerequisite to paradise, then we would not have a merciful God, but rather a cruel professor. Weren’t we as individual human beings given the God given gift of rationality and free will? We were given the innate capability to make something of ourselves. We must remember though that our goal is not merely to be the best we can be, but rather that we be the best we can be, for others. The goal was never individual, but rather a collective goal for society in general. We are here to MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE, but again, in the eyes of my students, they are nothing more than society’s outcasts that the world deigns to let survive. Their dignity is shattered. Once you think of yourself less than your constituents, then your capability suffers, and your being becomes greatly disordered.