When You Think of Poverty...

I heard my name called quietly amid the noise of the food distribution. It was the last batey we were visiting that day and the sun was intense, waiting patiently for our truck to drive out from under the protection of the shade tree and back into its full strength. The afternoon breeze was kicking up the dust and flinging it into our eyes.

Leaving my work, I stood up and made my way over to the driver’s side of the truck. Our driver, Ariel, was sitting in the front with a small group of people surrounding the open door. I made my way into the group and looked expectantly at Ariel, waiting to see what the problem was.

 “They say this boy just came from Haiti and was dropped off by someone here this morning,” Ariel began, his face sober and expressing an emotion I couldn’t quite place. Pity? Sympathy? I rarely saw him as serious as he was now. “The man who dropped him off told him he was going to the next town to pick something up and that he would be back, but he hasn’t returned.” He nodded his head toward a boy I hadn’t noticed right away, and I finally started to understand the situation. This boy was an illegal immigrant, and he had crossed the border with someone and been left behind in a batey where he knew no one.

He spoke no Spanish. Using the little Creole I know I asked him his name. To respect his privacy I will call him Emmanuel. We had some of the batey community members translate our questions and slowly we found out more of his story:

Emmanuel was fourteen years old. The man who took him across the border was not a family member. This was his very first day in the Dominican Republic. The man told him to wait here until he came back, but hours had passed and still he hadn’t returned. I asked the people listening where Emmanuel was going to stay tonight.

“On the street,” a girl proclaimed, with no shame or hesitation.

“Who is going to take care of him here?” I asked, my anger rising with my voice.

“Nobody knows who he is,” they told me. “We can’t trust people anymore.” Their answer was simple, but effective. My anger remained, but it was not directed at them. That’s part of an impoverished life. People hurt you, take advantage of you so many times that eventually you can’t trust anyone you don’t know. This boy could be lying about everything; he could be waiting for someone to weaken and allow him in, and then he will take all of their stuff. No, Emmanuel might be able to expect a meal from someone who takes pity on him, but in all likelihood there would be no bed waiting for him tonight.

Throughout my conversation with the locals Emmanuel remained motionless. He never smiled, never frowned, never showed any kind of emotion. His face was passive yet stoic, and there was a quiet fierceness in his eyes that told me he had seen too many hardships for someone so young. His back was arched in perfect posture and his head was held high, not out of a heightened sense of pride, but out of sheer will and resilience. When I saw his strength I felt broken.

We gave him two small bags of food before we left and told him that if he was here next week we would see about giving him a ticket to start receiving food from the ministry. He took the bags silently, with a quiet dignity, and began to walk away. I wondered where he was going, since he had never been here before and didn’t know where anything was. If I didn’t know his story, I never would have thought that he was an outsider. During his retreat he looked neither to the right nor the left; his head remained high and facing front. I followed him with my eyes until our truck pulled out of the village. As I observed him I couldn’t help thinking, “This is what poverty looks like. This is what poverty is.”

Emmanuel wasn’t dirty. He wasn’t wearing ragged clothes, and he didn’t have a distended belly. His appearance spoke nothing of his poverty, but his attitude spoke volumes. It’s an attitude that I can hardly explain, and that I don’t think you can truly begin to understand until you witness it for yourself. And even then, as outsiders I don’t think we can ever truly know how poverty affects someone.

People living in poverty are the strongest people I know. You have to be strong, or else life will break you. Nobody ever cries. On this island crying is for babies and weak people, and they hardly tolerate crying from babies either. If you have a problem you don’t cry about it, you deal with it because that’s all you can do. Their strength isn’t a choice; it’s the natural result of years of hardship.

People in poverty don’t look to the right or to the left for help, because they know they won’t find any. If they glance around the only thing they will see is more problems, so it’s just easier to face ahead and carry on to the best of their ability.

People in poverty seldom default to anger and indignation when things don’t go their way. Things rarely go their way. Many times in developed countries like the United States we get frustrated when things happen to us, like the electricity going out or a problem with our vehicle. We have grown to expect things to work out for us, so when they don’t we feel uncomfortable, or cheated somehow. Most people in impoverished conditions don’t learn to expect things to work out; they expect quite the opposite, if they even expect anything at all. That’s where the whole “live for the day” concept comes from in so many developing countries. Why bother saving money for tomorrow when I don’t know what tomorrow will bring me? Tomorrow could be worse than today. Better to use what I have now to take care of my immediate needs.

If Emmanuel was despairing over his situation, he wasn’t showing it. I’m sure he learned to suppress his emotions and hide his difficulties at a very young age. When we asked about him the next week they told us that he had left the same day he had arrived, setting off for the unknown. I will never see him again, and he will never know what an impact he made on my life. I hope and pray he found some friends to depend on.

So when you think of poverty, don’t focus too much on the lack of material wealth or the lower-quality living conditions. Those things don’t give you the whole story. Instead think of Emmanuel, his back straight despite all of the burdens he was carrying, his face determined despite all of the uncertainty before him.

That’s what poverty looks like.

That’s what poverty is.