Today, I had a little dose of reality.
As I sat outside of a small, blue house at the back end of Guachupita, I tried to internalize all that surrounded me. As crazy as it may sound, the more times I return to this place, the more I dull myself to the poverty that exists here. I forget that living in a house of tin walls in not normal. I forget that life without electricity or living water is not normal. I forget that children running around half naked in the dirtiest area of the country is not normal.
As I sat there and took in the brokenness around me, all I could think was “this is reality.” There are days when I long so desperately for the comforts of home, days when I want to break free from this oppression and the desperation that is all around, days that all I want is to be back home, back in the realm of reality… and then I realize, for them, this is home. This is their place of solitude, their place of comfort… for them, this is reality.
We all know poverty exists, right? But do we ever actually understand what it means to live within that poverty? Do we understand that many of the children that grow up in these cultures don’t know that what they have isn’t enough? Are we able to comprehend the fact that this is not just temporary, that day in and day out for these people this is LIFE?
My heart was broken once again today for the people here, mostly because I realize that in just 7 days from now I will pack up my stuff and move on, traveling around the world and eventually returning to my reality, back to my home… and the people here, they may never have the opportunity to move on, they may never be able to escape this reality.
