the wind swirls furiously
a mild howl is singing outside
the clouds are heavy, getting darker
it is cold and my child shivers
her tormented eyes starve for comfort
heavy rains are coming
is fear going to break me?
not a chance!
more than two dozen tires guard over us
i dare you to count them all!
my little angel groans
she is paler than yesterday
her sweaty forehead is on fire
i wipe off crusted blood on her mouth
she must have been biting her lips again
are you hungry, baby?
would you like something to eat?
we are safe from the tempest
but death won't stop
knocking at the door
Forgive a learning poet for expressing his feelings of despair today. That is what I felt when I saw houses (yes, plural) like this weeks ago. The rains are coming to town. That means more stagnant water. Those tires collect stagnant water, and are therefore breeding places for dengue-carrying mosquitoes. But the poor among us can't be choosers. They make do with what is available to them. You can't ask them to remove those tires from their makeshift roofs.
It does not matter if they know or not how dreadful dengue spreads....their wretched condition has extinguished whatever positive emotion they had left.
For the simple-minded, it is easy to say eliminate mosquitoes, and you eliminate dengue fever. For the deep thinker, preventing dengue fever is not about mosquitoes alone. It is also about giving hope and opportunity to those whose lives have been demonized with constant pessimism.
It does not matter if they know or not how dreadful dengue spreads....their wretched condition has extinguished whatever positive emotion they had left.
For the simple-minded, it is easy to say eliminate mosquitoes, and you eliminate dengue fever. For the deep thinker, preventing dengue fever is not about mosquitoes alone. It is also about giving hope and opportunity to those whose lives have been demonized with constant pessimism.
1 reactions:
Couldn't people be hired in each community to inspect the tires and cut large drain holes in them? The tires are unsightly, but there is not an inexpensive replacement for them. If the tires drained well, there would be fewer places for mosquitos to breed and poor people would still have roofs. And some poor people would have a new, important job. Would that work?
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