I am dumbfounded on how strong you were able to express your feelings on that essay. Now, it's my turn to speak out my mind. Hope my response would have a strong and clear conviction to everyone just like yours.
You gave not only me - but the other readers as well - a clear and detailed picture of what poverty really is. Many people (I admit, that includes me before reading your essay) who are lucky enough to not experience your condition may not understand the real meaning of poverty. We may say that it's difficult living on such condition. But we really don't know how difficult it is. By reading your essay, readers like me was given a vivid impression about what you are talking about. Our suggestions of help were proved to be shallow when you counter-attaked it with explanations that shows our suggestions giving you more burden. You mentioned about the health of your children. We may have suggested about health clinics for they provide "free" check-ups for the poor. But letting us know how far the health clinic is in your place gave me an impression of guilt. It feels like suggesting about the health clinics and other related things makes us show that you're dumb to not think about them. But I realize it's us who's dumber for we do not think about knowing your condition first before giving shallow - or shall I say, useless - suggestions.
You say that the reader should "listen" to you without pity. I'm sorry, but even if you cannot use my pity, I can't stop feeling it, not only for you but for the entire misfortunate people who are suffering from poverty as well. Please don't take my pity in a bad way. It's normal for people to feel sympathetic over something that is way too sorrowful than his or her condition. Infact, the pity that I feel (and maybe the other readers as well, I hope) serves as an eye-opener to the real conditions of the society. It slowly removes my ignorance about the problems of society; it makes me aware of the hidden tyrant that is secretly ruling the society and sucking not only the wealth, but the rights of powerless people. This feeling may be the anger that you are referring to your essay - the anger that will help us help you.
Let me connect your condition to the situations of people here in our country. Majority of the people here experience poverty, just like you. They suffer from filthy environment, foul odor, poor hygiene, and poor health. You're still lucky somehow because you still manage to pay a rent of $20 for your house. But here, most of the poor people here don't have their own houses. Some sleep on sidewalks, with cartons or newspapers as their bedsheets and the sound of vehicles as their lullaby. Add the polluted air that they breathe and the danger that they may encounter everyday. Some also dare to squat on vacant lots and even under the bridges, despite the fact that soon the government will sent them away and their houses will be demolished.
In other countries, farmers are rich. They own their lands. Their government treat them well. But here we can see the opposite. Farmers are treated as slaves. They work on lands which they do not own and thus owned by what we call landlords. These landlords don't feel any strike of sympathy over these unfortunate farmers. They put the farmers into hard labor while there they are, sitting pretty and enjoying every vanity that only them can afford. Worse, they don't give back what these hardworking farmers deserve. The farmers work and the landlords benefit; the landlords get richer and richer, while the farmers get poorer and poorer until they strive into their life and soon, die with eyes open because of hunger.
The system of rich sucking the poor does not only occur to farmers. It also happens on ordinary people just like you and me. Why do you think you suffer from poverty? Maybe you'll say that it's the government's fault. But that's too broad. Of course we must examine on the roots. We must know why. I'm not completely sure if the reason of poverty in your place (or in any part of the world) is the same as ours. But here in our country, it is voiced out by many demonstrators that certain rich clans have been manipulating the government. Worse is that our president is said to be a part of those clans. Privatization starts to take place on the government sectors like on education and health. If before, the funds were subsidized by the government and thus making the social services free or affordable to the people, now the responsibility is passed on to private sectors (which are owned by the clans I'm referring to a while ago). But these private sectors, of course, will not only think about the benefit of the people (or shall I remove the word 'only') but instead treat it as a business matter or money making. Some government sectors, if not immediately passed on to private sectors, experienced a cut on budget first. Then slowly, as the budget to keep the sector running gets lower and lower, privatization takes place. People will surely suffer from increasing fees without having their salary increased, and thus making them poorer and poorer.
Because of the foul actions these "rich people" secretly do, more people experience poverty. That makes a lot of people - including me - angry. But questions keeps revolving on my head. What can I do? What a fifteen years old girl can do? Should I join those people who bravely show their protest against the government, or will I just let them speak out what's on my mind? I have a lot of "valid excuse" for me to not join such acts, but the conscience bounce back at me. I remember you asked the readers on the last part of the essay. Can I be silent too, just like the poor people who hardly express what they feel? If only I'm brave enough, free enough, and supported enough to speak out everything what's on my mind, I'll do my best to defend the rights of every people that were treated as inferiors by those rich people. But I am not. I may sound ironic now, but I have no choice. And I don't know how long I will be like this. For others, I'll just hope that if they have the capability to act in accordance to this situation, they will act now. But for myself, for now I'll just pray for people like you - for everyone - that one day, the triangle will be inverted, bringing the poor people or majority on top.
