DOES POVERTY HAVE A FACE?
Istood at the entrance of the hotel contemplating if I should venture into the city to explore or not. At the back of my mind was the warning the airport protocol officer had given on safety and not to carry a lot of cash nor flash. It was still daylight and at least 2 hours before dusk and I was pretty certain I could handle myself provided I didn’t do anything stupid.
The lure of seeing the belly of the capital city of Madagascar, having never been before was too much to ignore and so with a muted prayer under my breath, I stepped into the unknown.
The hotel was located in what must have been the original heart of the city, like many colonial African city centres, it was over crowded with small, tightly packed houses lining narrow roads and sidewalks covered with wares and filthy. The affluence of years past could be gleaned in the architecture of the churches and government buildings but the affluent had long since abandoned this neighborhood for more luscious dwellings somewhere, someplace I was yet to discover. Walking alone, I stood out as I knew I would and could sense danger around certain corners but something kept them at bay as I wove my way through the small roads and steps that went up and down the hilly land. Nightfall was fast approaching and I had gone further and longer than calculated, having missed my way. I needed to get back before the wicked come out to play.
The Almighty God scattered the people at Babel and from then till date man has migrated from one place to another whenever they could. The people I saw on the streets this day would have wished they too could move but were not likely to go anywhere anytime soon. Trapped in a viscous cycle of poverty, they had nowhere to go but try to make sense of their today with no hope that tomorrow would be any better. I looked around for signs that anchored hope, an indication that any one of them who really tried, could find a rung up the wealth ladder but even the middle class, if they existed where nowhere to be found. Who were their mentors? I wondered as I searched the faces of the children I came across along the way and it was hard to phantom they would have any in the vicinity of their neighbourhood to point them to where a glimmer of hope could be anchored. The greatest danger to any people is when a generation’s view of tomorrow does not go beyond their today. Poverty indeed had a face and I encountered it in the eyes of the youth in Antananarivo.
May we find the heart to fight the wickedness called poverty today.
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