Grief

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Poverty
By Dan Blankenship



Just the other day, I was passing by a friend of mine when I commented on her jacket, asking where she had purchased the rather eye-catching item. She informed me that it used to be her son’s jacket, and that he didn’t want it anymore; she was the beneficiary of an item that he no longer needed. She jokingly went on to say that she was happy to receive that jacket, with her being “poor” and all. Now I knew my friend really didn’t mean to imply that she truly was poverty-stricken, but I know that many Americans, including myself, consider themselves to be in the “poor house” financially.

I was only a few steps away from my friend when I began to ponder the ridiculousness of such assertions. Compared to the world’s standard for poverty, very few Americans are intimately familiar with life in the “poor house”.

Twenty-one percent of the global population have an income of less than one dollar a day. This means that 1.1 billion people on the planet live under conditions most Americans cannot even comprehend.

How dare we even joke about being poor as we wake up in our warm beds, heat our Pop-Tarts in our electric toaster ovens, drive our heated and air-conditioned SUVs to our places of employment just before we send our kids off to a public school system that may be lacking but is at least free from most communicable diseases. If Americans suffer from poverty, a large segment of the global population would be happy to swap places with our afflicted masses.

Now please don’t think I am unaware that there are people in America who go hungry, who lack adequate health care, and who have no place to call home. But in America there are places for one to seek out food, request government and private aid, and ask for a room to be sheltered in. Some of our planet’s brethren have no such options; life is a miserable and nearly hopeless battle for sustenance.

In many regions of the world, a public water fountain, something we take for granted, would be a blessing that could save thousands of lives over the course of a year. A church pantry stocked with healthy food, ready for distribution, is not an option for many mothers around the globe who painstakingly watch their child succumb to starvation, a tragedy that should no longer be a part of human existence.

In Ethiopia, only 32 percent of the population has access to safe drinking water, and there is only one physician for every 50,000 people. Something to ponder the next time you visit the office water cooler while fellow employees are discussing overpriced snacks in the vending machine.

In Rwanda, a country with over 8 million people, there are only four airports with paved runways. That’s one airport for every 2 million people. In America, there are 19,000 airports, one airport for every 15,000 people, and I would be willing to speculate access to safe drinking water in every facility.

America has its fair share of concerns, crime, divorce, a populace that is split right down the middle politically, and a worldwide image problem. But most of our citizens have never truly known the type of poverty that can be found in East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, or Latin America.

America is a blessed nation. We sometimes take that for granted, underestimating the daily value of necessities we’ve never thought about losing, never taking enough time to examine our existence on a worldwide basis. We are not poor – not even close.



SOURCES: http://web.worldbank.org,
http://www.ethiopianembassy.org, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2053.html, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/rw.html,
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features/001573.html

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