Why are there poor people in your country?

Today was was a great field visit—fantastic, but a long day.  I met a man who is an "ideal farmer", because he had integrated many different types of farming on his land, a women’s group, a woman running her own tailor shop, and an adolescent group. 

There were lots of things I started to write about today, but they’re all jumbled and I’ll have to make sense of it all another day.  The people I visited today live in a rural part of Bangladesh and had never seen someone with such light skin, which lead to questions about what I ate (because I looked different enough that the women thought I might be totally different), and what I did for fun (when I said bake and cook, they were surprised; they thought Americans didn’t know how to cook).  Two children called out to me, “’Drella, Drella,” and Habina explained that they thought I was a character from one of their story books, Cinderella. 

I had my own share of misconceptions;  when the farmer was showing me all his different crops, he pointed out a pineapple plant.  I thought pineapples grew on trees, and when I asked if it grew bigger, they laughed and said no.  I stretched up my arms to mimic what I thought a pineapple tree looked like and we all laughed.    

Habina and I talked a lot about how Bangladesh was different from America.  After asking if there were poor people in America, she asked:  Why are there poor people in your country?   I didn’t know what to say.  I think I mumbled something about people being greedy and not having a community mentality.  We have so much technology and consider ourselves such an advanced society; why are there poor people in our country?

She followed up with: What kind of programs are there to help poor people?  I could answer that one a little easier; we have lots of non-government organizations in America working to help the poor, many religious organizations dedicated to helping, food pantries, homeless shelters and government programs  and different systems set up.  But I don’t know the details and haven’t taken time to look at the big picture of how our society is addressing poverty in America.  I haven’t taken the time, partially because poverty isn’t a big part of my world.  Why do I have to travel halfway around to engage and observe ways to eliminate poverty in the long run?  To look at true solutions, stretching beyond buying a child a toy on Christmas or volunteering to help at a 5k run to fundraise money. 

If I really believe that all people are created equal in God’s eyes, that poverty is an injustice that no one should have to suffer, then why haven’t I taken the time to at least understand what the hurdles are in my home country, let alone become part of the solution?

The work the CRWRC is doing here is transformational sustainable community development.  I think in America we need to become aware of poverty in country and begin to build solutions by building up community at home as well as abroad.

Lots more to talk about from this field visit, hopefully that will come soon!