Keeping On

So, in order to finish what one starts, one has to complete any number of tasks, which in the completion of them leads to a finished product. If I keep writing,
at the end of this presumably there will a book, a collection of essays, or something that others will get to read - aside from family and/or friends.

As previously indicated, I did finish the ride, I did raise funds that are at this moment being used to support others in need while seeking to end the cycle of poverty and awareness was raised throughout the continent about these issues. Even as I write this, I still find it incomprehensible that people have not been aware of the existence of poverty, the conditions which lead to it, the attempts to address it. And again - I have to acknowledge that there are people who are either unaware of it's existence, in their midst, or believe that due to their financial struggles that they are living in conditions of poverty. If we understand poverty to mean more than a like of money, economic security, then I suppose it's true. For poverty is more than just lack of money in the bank. It's more than not having material necessities although it wouldn't do to minimize the impact this has on people's sense of well-being. However, there is a mental component to the state of poverty which isn't addressed as much. Anyone who has a roof over their heads but believes that their situation is equivilent to that of those who sleep on the streets because they no longer have a roof, is in a mindset of poverty. Fear of losing the house, fear of not paying bills, fear of being destitute does things to people. It robs them of the understanding that 90% of the world's population would feel like millionaires if they had the what most of us in the western world has and takes for granted. It's amazing to me that there are so many of us who have no real understanding of what it means to be truly poor. Does it matter? If you think you live in poverty, then perhaps you do - no matter what the facts of your life indicate otherwise. And then there are the people that a recent article in the AARP bulletin described - people who are out on the street having just recently owned not one but two homes, worth over a million dollars. Not that I think she deserves to be living in her car at this time but I cannot fathom what lead her to believe that she needed two homes. Or two homes worth that much. It's hard for me to conjure up feelings of empathy that tend normally would be almost automatic upon hearing this situation. I know she is suffering, I know that I would not want to live in a car. Why isn't there a place for her, a place she can afford, a place where she can have three square meals a day? I don't know. But the image in my mind of the "townships" Dave & I saw in South Africa, the images of the people of Darfur and the Sudan, and our native American reservations and pockets in the Applachians as contrasted with the home she used to live in, make it hard for me to feel that compassion that I would prefer to think of as automatic and non-judgemental.
But interestingly enough she is keeping on. She is seeking solutions to her problems. She is looking for options. They are there although not at the level they could be in a country which has so many resources but tends not to distribute them equitably.
What do people do when there are no or minimal resources? No water, no wheat. No medical care? How are these situations going to be addressed? Well, at the moment during the countdown to election day, as the candidates stress the need to vote for THEM, I am hearing the "promise" that things will change, that in the future, more people will be able to pay their bills and live the "American Dream". It's what presidential candidates do but is it real? Can one person change the focus of a country enough so that all people will be able to pay bills, own a house and have enough for the periodic vacation? And what about people throughout the world? Don't they also have right to all those things we've been conditioned to believe we have right to? Like oh say - WATER!!! Did you know that in a recent world leader conference - there was actually a discussion as to whether access to water was a right or a privilege? HELLO!?!?! Is that for real? Not that access to water hasn't always been a hallmark of those in power, those who could control a designated geographic/social environment. But when, how did it come to this point that we would seriously discuss the possibility that some people, just because of where they live don't have the same right to drinking water as anyone else in the world. Amazing.
Anyway - the 2.1 million that we raised, while perhaps only a drop in the bucket in the larger picture, will be used to address these issues in the lives of individuals and communities.