We are moving deeper and deeper into our slum, revealing the challenges of daily life for the poor in greater details.
The house we have has no constant electricity, no shower – although we do have water, as we supply the water for our area. Life begins here at 5am, with rosters, dogs and children preparing for the first classes of school which start at 6am. We have a mozzie net, a samll set of drawers and a camper bed. The kitched has a gas burner stove, a small cupboard, two pots, some plastic containers and some utensils…what else do you need…?
Our house gets its power from a larger generator that supllies 45 houses, but for the last four days it has not been working. Darkness determines the end of the day. People shut up and secure their homes, dogs get tied up in doorways for security, mums call in the older children and people settle in for the night.
Through out the night the dogs warm of passerbys and possible intruders. If alot of dogs go off at once, numerous men will emerge from their homes, some with torches, to see what the disturbance might be. There is no police station out here, no rules, you all look after yourself and your neighbors. It begins to rain, heavy, our house still leaks a fair bit in a heavy rain, but I look at the houses around us – ragged tents, bits of this, bits of that for roofs and walls, sitting on the ground and getting flooded – and I realise that our leaks aren’t so bad. We are not trying to keep babies dry, we are not infested with rats, all we have is not wet yet.
The night is full of mozzies, roosters who don’t know what time is is and drunks. Last night there was a very aggressive argument a couple of houses up, you lie there listening, hoping it does not get out of control, wondering if you will intervene if it turns viloent…but it settled down and there was no real drama.
You definitely don’t feel safe out here…but I can go home anytime I want to…these people live here.
Every morning we get a great view of the sunrise as we look over the roofs around us.
Yesterday we were going to visit a sick child and we notice a growing crowd just in front of us. As we get nearer people are talking about a gun and a shooting. There is a large crowd, but there only seems t be one guy shouting commands and doing stuff, I ask him is some one dead “Wala, buhay” (No, he’s alive). A group of men head of too a slum home on the side of the muddy dirt road. The first mans jumps inside (it’s off the ground), he picks up a man absolutely covered in blood, but still alive. The shooting has only just happened, he has been shot in the heart, he is going to die… I help the man to get him outside (everyone else just dissappeared into the crowd), there is blood everywhere, I can see the hole in his chest, I put my hand over it and press as hard as I can while I help him out of the house. He is trying to stand, stumbling as I hold him – he is going to die in a minute or so. The other guy has gotten a trike for him, we put him in and they race off down the muddy dirt track – he won’t make it…
Shocking, but think about it…if one of your kids got even a semi decent injury or wound, what do you do here…there is no taxi, no ambulance, no phone to use, no easy access at all in any form of emergencey…it’s only you. The man above died, he was an innocent bystander in some one elses argument.
You definitely wonder why God thinks you need to be involved in stuff like that, why did you walk past, why did you stop and go into the house. Nothing I did helped in anyway at all, nothing but a miracle could of saved him…and there was no miracle there and then for him. But Jesus is still Lord and we still need to get as involved as we can in whatever is happening around us.
Sometimes there is nothing easy about helping people, but I suppose that Jesus knew that better than we ever will…!
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