I think when we, as Americans, picture “poverty” in our minds it’s some small child with brown skin, with tiny fragile limbs and distended stomach, walking naked through rubble and trash, open sores covering their skin, and flies swarming all around them. And sometimes poverty looks like that. But sometimes poverty looks much, much differently.
This is something I’ve come to understand in my almost two years of Peace Corps service. Now, keep in mind, my perspective comes only from my experience here, on my island of Pohnpei in the country of FSM. I can’t speak for all corners of the world where poverty persists, nor can I speak much about the corners of our own country where children still go hungry. But this is what I’ve come to know.
I live in a place where most people in my peer group have a cell phone or mp3 player, or both. Some people even have laptops or tablets. Almost everyone has a facebook account. Families enjoy watching movies together, and for a short time there was even an xbox at my house. When children write about who they want to be when they grow up, they say things like Lebron James or Miley Cyrus (news travels slowly out here). Teens can recite lyrics from American pop songs and they care about if they have the cool hat or shoes.
I also live somewhere where many people don’t have access to clean water. A place where children run barefoot in the dirt road, half-clothed or in some cases naked. A place where people lack the basic sanitation and nutrition to lead long and healthy lives. A place where people cook on fires and eat outside. Where animals roam freely and people are too closely confined. A place where adults and children alike wear old, battered, torn clothes for lack of other options. A place where open sores are often infected and leave permanent marks on the skin. A place where most adults never finished eighth grade and many cannot read or write.
This is poverty.
But what’s more disturbing about this is that the country I live in, FSM has been receiving quite a large chunk of financial aid from the US by way of The Compact of Free Association since 1982. So, one would assume that conditions would be improving. Roads would be built, potable water would be available to all, and health care would be on the rise. But I can tell you, it’s not. Instead, what FSM has to show for their “friendship” with America is imported goods. Cheap, low quality, salty and sugary foods are pouring in at an alarming rate, and technology is permeating even way out into rural jungle communities.
As a result, FSM now has a diabetes rate of about 30% (according to a 2008 study by the WHO, the number has likely risen since), and in a country of roughly only 100,000 people, that is a HUGE amount. The majority of the population has or is at risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and a large number of other health concerns. And meanwhile, they STILL don’t have clean drinking water. Something doesn’t make sense here.
The next logical question is, then why is the US spending money on this country, if not to help its people improve their quality of life? I believe that question has two answers, one is monetary reasons (if the people buy the stuff, why not sell it?) and the other is military (the FSM makes a nice little foothold in the Pacific, and by 2008 it had lost five times more soldiers in combat per capita than the United States).
Hm. Weird.
The way I see it, money and goods are a way to pacify the country into letting the US have military access. It’s that simple. But at what cost? The FSM is now wholly and entirely dependent on foreign aid with little hope to become self-sufficient. Possibly ever. But I suppose with a total population of only 100,000, it’s easy for most people not to care about the long-term effects of political actions.
So in the meantime, I can sit on a slab of concrete under a thatched roof in the middle of the jungle, next to half-naked children with dirty fingernails eating rice and canned SPAM with our fingers and watching Spiderman on their new flat screen TV, and everything is okay. Right?
This is the new face of poverty. And I don’t know how to make it better.
--Christy
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