Yesterday was my first MS/HS international day in SSIS. I would say that yesterday was a very interesting day and a day that I don’t think I would ever forget in my life.
Welcome the Crossroads from Hong Kong! At the beginning of the day, it started with Mr David’s speech. He was an excellent speaker and I was really impressed with the stories that he told us. There was one story about when one side of the world was starving to death, the other side of the world had too much food that they needed. Although it is hard to admit it, but yes, this is our world. When one is complaining about the food was not delicious, at the same time another is dying because of starvation. In this condition, it made me think: should I spend money on delicious food when there are some people in the world are starving? But I do like good food, so what should I do?
Mr David also told us that poverty wasn’t just about money. This is another thing to think about. If I had one million dollars and there was no food to buy, then what is the use of the one million dollars. Poverty is about food, water, clothes and others.
During the first activity, we were told to take of our shoes. Then the workers and teachers gave us shoes(left and right) that do not belong to us. The theme was to show that the people in poverty do not have the chance to choose what they wear. They wear what were given to them. I received two shoes of the same sides. It wasn’t really comfortable wearing shoes that don’t fit. I saw the two people that wore my shoes were males. They couldn’t fit into my shoe. Honestly, it was a bit hilarious looking at people wearing shoes that don’t fit because we were not really in poverty.
In the second activity, we were divided into groups. We were asked to choose basic needs, such as water. We also had to fight with other groups to take the things that we needed because the the resources were limited. In poverty, the basics that you need are water and food because those are the most basic things that you need to survive. When you survive, you have to think for another way to survive. The only thing that you could think of only is survival.
Then, we had rice, about one fifth of a potato, cabbage, to big chunks of carrot and a cup of strong tea. The rice, potato and cabbage was quite delicious, but I really don’t desire the carrots and tea. Mr David mentioned that he had a friend who went to Cambodia for a month and all his friend ate for the whole month was white rice. If I had rice, potato and cabbage for a month, I think I would still be quite happy. But if I had only white rice, I think I will start to throw up on the second meal. Well, I think I’m living a really decent life. I never need to worry about finding food in order to survive. Again I think: In reality, I have food that I don’t like and I have the choice to not eat the food. But if I was in poverty, I would not care whether I liked carrots or not. I would just eat the carrots because I was starving.
In the last workshop, we were divided in families. We were in poverty and we had to make paper bags to sell the them to shopkeepers in order to make money. The money was to buy food, pay rent and schooling. The shopkeepers were quite mean and they tore some of the paper bags we made. But we were in poverty and we must sell the paper bags so we could not show our anger to shopkeepers. We had to make the shopkeepers willing to buy our paper bags. I was really shocked about what people did to sell their paper bags. Some entertained the shopkeepers, some massaged the shopkeepers, one kissed the shopkeepers’ shoes, one married the loan shark’s daughter. One of my family members even sold herself to earn money for our family. A lot of us thought of stealing paper bags from other family and stealing money too. Mr David then explained to us that in this desperate condition, you would do anything to earn money for your family to survive. I totally agree with a comment of Diep. She said that she would be embarrassed if she was in poverty; but during the game, all of us were so busy making paper bags that we did not have time to feel embarrassed. Other than that, it was also because all of us were the same. We were all in poverty.
After all these activities, I feel that I want to do something for the poor and help them. I actually thought of when I grow up, maybe Ｉ ｃａｎ ｇｏ ｔｏ ｏｎｅ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ｐｏｏｒ ｃｏｕｎｔｒｉｅｓ ｔｏ ｈｅｌｐ ｔｈｅ ｐｅｏｐｌｅ ｏｒ ｈｅｌｐ ａ ｃｈａｒｉｔｙ ｌｉｋｅ Ｃｒｏｓｓｒｏａｄｓ．Ｂｕｔ ａｔ ｔｈｅ ｓａｍｅ ｔｉｍｅ，Ｉ ａｍ ａｌｓｏ ａｆｒａｉｄ ｏｆ ｌｉｖｉｎｇ ｉｎ ａ ｂａｄ ｅｎｖｉｒｏｎｍｅｎｔ．Ｉ ｈａｖｅ ａ ｃｏｎｃｅｒｎｅｄ ｔｏｏ．Ｔｏ ｕｓ ｔｈａｔ ｌｉｖｅ ａ ｄｅｃｅｎｔ ｌｉｆｅ，ｓｈｏｕｌｄ ｗｅ ｄｏｎａｔｅ ｏｕｒ ｌｅｆｔ ｏｖｅｒ ｍｏｎｅｙ ｔｏ ｔｈｅ ｐｏｏｒ ａｎｄ ｅｎｔｉｒｅｌｙ ｎｏｔ ｕｓｅ ｏｕｒ ｍｏｎｅｙ ｏｎ ｅｎｔｅｒｔａｉｎｍｅｎｔ？
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