Poverty

I thought I saw my share of poverty before today: the adobe houses of Peru, the primitive kitchens of Tanzania, and the trash filled mazes of the Mongolian slums. However, nothing compared to the narrow corridors and malnourished children here in India. After visiting the Malagodowm Street Children Project we took a tour of the slum. Now I finally understand how 1.2 million people fit in this seemingly small city.

Weaving my way through the hanging laundry, the environment was completely overwhelming. After peering into the half open doorways, I would guess that no room was larger than the size of a king-size bed; yet, an entire family lives in one room. We're not talking about the modern-day father and mother with a few children type of family; we're talking about one father, three wives and an average of 8 children all cramped into this small space to eat, sleep, and basically live. I couldn't imagine being confined to such a space. The streets along the slums were not much better: barely wide enough to allow me to pass, filled with trash and wet with dirty water. The houses were continuous--packed tightly one after another. In truth, I can't even really call them houses, simply a continuous string of rooms each overflowing with women and children. At times, I wanted to escape. The people were crowding me, the air was filled with smoke coming from the houses, the walls of the houses to my left and right were closing in on me and the roofs were coming down on me, forcing me to duck lower and lower. It seemed like every corner we turned, the world became smaller, more compact, and more populated.
How do we battle such a poverty? Sitting in the classroom filled with poor street children, there were just as many, if not more standing outside peering into the doorway. In this one slum Ruchika has 10 schools, but it's obviously not sufficient capacity for even half the children living there. With their 300 teachers and innumerable schools and projects, Ruchika still can't help ALL the children in Bhubaneswar. I couldn't help think, "And this is only in Bhubaneswar. What about the rest of India?"