At no point in my life have I ever been rich, nor have I ever wanted to be rich.
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| A 'sides-to-middled' sheet |
I lived for years as a single parent on benefits with insecure housing. While my children were young and growing fast, I took pleasure in the challenge of budgeting for the expensive school shoes required by their school. At that time, benefits were collected weekly from a local post office. I would purposefully make a week’s money last for eight days and then collect the next installment. By that means, every seven weeks I could cash a whole extra week’s benefits which could then be used for school shoes. There was a great sense of triumph in this.
On the other hand, I did not want my children to see myself
or themselves as hard-done-by. I made it
clear to my children’s school that they must keep the fact that my children
were on free school meals confidential, even from my children. There came a time when that information was
given to a church group who wanted to distribute food hampers for Christmas to
the poorest in the parish. I had spent a
full six months carefully putting things aside for Christmas. I was so angry when they came to the door,
making nothing of all my efforts by producing a whole lot of things which I had
already bought (which of course they were ignorant of). I refused the hamper. I am sorry for my attitude with hindsight,
because I know they were good people trying to help those in need. They just got the wrong person and in my
opinion were using a very poor method of help.
For the last eleven years of my time in my home country I
lived on a boat on the Thames, initially because I could not afford the rent of
a home on land, even though I had regular work.
Over that time, I came to really appreciate the daily efforts of living
in semi-third world conditions, especially in the winter; for example the
necessity to carry buckets of coal onto the boat to keep warm and to put a
tarpaulin over the boat to keep some of the heat inside. There is something far more pleasurable in
producing heat and comfort when it has been difficult to achieve.
I now live in South Sudan, one of the poorest countries in
the world. To do this, I sold my boat
and other more valuable possessions and gave away almost everything else
through a wonderful website called Freecycle.
The resulting fund sustains me in South Sudan so that I can do the work
I have been called to do. It is a call
to live with the local people, sharing in their lives and helping them in any
way I can. My experiences of poverty are
in action the whole time.
Although there is a huge problem of poverty, there is also a
huge ignorance of how to make the most of what is there and to prioritise in
order of importance. People live
hand-to-mouth but do not have the concept of resisting the goodies in favour of
necessities.
For example, people struggle to pay their children’s school
fees and put food on the table, but they can be found spending a whole day having
their hair done and buying clothes.
There is a huge drug and drink problem, which is also a big drain on
money which could be better used.
Dependency on NGOs is very high and has become a tradition
lasting around 50 years due to incessant war.
People take for granted that seeds come from NGOs each year. Staple foods come from the UN or WFP. Mosquito nets also come from NGOs even though
it is possible to buy them locally. This
stops people from thinking or planning for themselves and they lose the ability
to be resourceful.
I try to set an example by mending my clothes rather than
buying more, until a stage is reached when new clothes become necessary. Then I buy secondhand if possible. I wear the cheapest flip-flops (locally
called slippers) until they break. Then
I have them mended by a local disabled shoe-mender until they are past
repair. I bought a set of sheets 5 years
ago, which wore out in the middle. I did what my mother did, and cut them in
half along the broken middle area, then sewed the ends together. My mother used to call this technique ‘sides
to middling’.
I have called this post ‘Rebecca the Walking Wallet’ because
this is how I am often perceived. As I
walk around the town, I am the only white person to be seen and am regarded by
those who don’t know me as DOLLARS, not a fellow human being. The common perspective is that a white person
is necessarily rich and a member of a huge multi-national NGO. This is especially a male conception, but
some women also do the same. They are in
reality after me for cigarettes, drink and drugs, but claim to be hungry. It becomes obvious (even without the give-away
smell of tobacco or drink) that this is the case when I offer to buy them
something to eat and it is contemptuously refused. If I say that I have no money I am not
believed. Occasionally, a thin and wretched-looking
old woman will ask for help, and she I do not refuse.
In my view South Sudan is definitely in need of support, but
that support should enable people to get out of this culture of dependency and
learn how to stand on their own feet.
Education is especially important for this to happen as children will
(hopefully) grow to think for themselves, outside the box and find ways to help
themselves. I wish very sincerely for those I come into daily contact to learn to have self-respect instead of living forever as beggars.
