A brief look at hunger…
Posted on June 2nd, 2009.
This is an excerpt from a piece Hannah Weehunt wrote after a recent trip to India with S.O.S:
Hannah is the Adminstrative Assistant at at the S.O.S. offices in the U.S.
“This Past trip to India was really eye opening to me! I saw things that I had seen before but never really looked at. I found myself completely out of my comfort zone!
We went to hand out about 60 pairs of donated shoes (the first few of a larger shipment) to street kids. We didn’t have a ton of shoes so we went to a place that one of our India team members knew of that didn’t have the normal masses of people.
When we got there, Dad and some others jumped out of the car and started handing out the stuff. They drew a crowd.
I looked down at where the people lived and only the small children where left sitting. I decided to get some better pictures and got out of the car.
As I stepped out onto this patch of ground these people called home, a horrible almost overpowering smell immediately overwhelmed me. There are mounds of trash and human waste everywhere… there are little kids all around me – their little bodies showing sings of server malnutrition. Some are standing naked in the trash while other sat on the ground eating rotten apples. When I looked into their eyes I could tell life in the slums was taking its toll on them.
The little food they did have was rotten and covered with bugs and dirt. Food that I regularly wouldn’t even want to touch, they have to eat and feed to their kids. Knowing that in the long run it was killing them but at least momentarily taking away the hunger pains that kept their kids up all night crying.
It is hard to describe accurately what this group of people looked like. Skin-and-bones doesn’t describe how horrible it was. I looked over at a baby so small that she could have fit in my palm. There where boils all over her body and if she wasn’t dead already she could have died soon thereafter. The “milk” her mother had to give her was yellowish and had dirt floating in it.
It seemed like a lifetime but within a few minutes, Dad was calling me back to the car. We didn’t have enough shoes to give away and we had to leave. I turned around as we drove away and saw a crowd of people just like you and me, desperate for someone to answer their call for help; desperate for someone to show them even a little bit of compassion.
Now that I am looking back at it, it seems almost unreal – like this horrible dream that I was lucky enough to wake up from, but leaving these people stuck in a reality that no-one should have to face. A reality that we can change!
It’s sad to admit but this isn’t just a one time thing or a unique place. People are living like this all over India. During this trip I realized what a blessing it is to get to come here. Yes its hard… and there are a lot of things I have to give up, but if it helps just one person, then it’s all worth it!”
To support projects like Emergency Feeding, please contribute here.
Share and Enjoy
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
