While sipping my warm ginger tea, I'm thinking about the kids that we often see on the streets offering me to buy sampaguita flowers that they made into necklaces. Will they have food to eat if they don't sell the strings of flowers? I think about those kids roaming around selling rugs, crackers, bottled water, cigarettes or candies on dangerous busy streets and highways. They wait for the red light and they knock at your car doors offering their goods. They rush past cars when the green lights up hoping not to get hit by rushing vehicles. I think about the kids, their clothes dirty and torn, sticky hair, face, hands, feet and body all filthy, laying down in the overpass, begging for you to throw your change into the tin can. I think about the kids aged 9 to 15 inhaling rugby with peers. Because that's the only thing they can afford and it's good to be high, they don't feel the ache in their tummies for lack of food for several days. They don't worry about tomorrow. I think about the little girls, and wonder if they'll ever get to school and learn to read or write. I wonder how many years do they still have before they'll be selling their own bodies to strangers like their older sisters did to survive. I see them when we go into the city and even in our place, their numbers keep on growing.
And I think about the moms of these kids. I don't think they delight seeing their kids propelled to go into the streets to earn a single cent. I would've shoved an umbrella above my kids' heads or pushed them inside the house to study their lessons but instead these moms brave the sight of their young kids trying to earn a living under the hot sunny skies. I don't think these moms are proud reaching out their arms for alms, her other arm carrying her baby.
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| by the road side in Batangas, Philippines |
Picture above was taken as we were going home from Batangas province (Philippines). A mom and daughter was living in a shanty by the road side. The place where they sell boiled corn cobs is also their kitchen, their dining room, their living room, their bedroom and their toilet. I didn't dare to stop the car and talk to her. I didn't ask what are her dreams and hopes for her kid. I was afraid to look at her eyes. I was afraid that what I would hear from her would crush a mother's heart in me. I look at her face and guess that she just wanted to sell all the corn cobs so she'll have food to serve for her family that day. I know that like me, she wants to provide proper shelter, good health and education for her kid.
Like you and me, her heart jumped for joy the first time she heard her kid call her mom, mama, mommy, nanay, mother, ahm, mutter, okaasan, madre, nana, amma, emak, ohm. It's so easy to forget that there are many moms out there like her who are suffering when we live in ease and comfort. It's so easy not to feel for these moms when we could get not only our needs but our wants in life. It's easy to go on not thinking about infants who are sick and their moms do not know when they could carry them without those IVs or tubes in their nose. And when or if they could ever bring them home healthy. Many babies die for lack of treatment because of poverty. For many of us, that's unimaginable. But these moms are real. And they have the simplest desires in their hearts that you might find yours big and meaningless. Go get your frappuccino, but don't forget about those moms.On Mother's Day I want to dedicate this blog to moms living in poverty. To those moms who try everyday and put on a brave face. If you are a mom reading this, you are blessed. You are brave and strong. God made you to share His love by giving the love of a mother that no else can give. Happy Mother's Day!
You can help save the lives of moms and babies living in poverty through the Child Survival Program or by making a one time donation.
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