I, like many others, have bemoaned our unfortunate circumstances and how God must be angry with us for we are plagued with problem after problem after problem. We embrace this frustration so deeply that it has become ingrained into our minds, embedded deeply into the recesses of our consciousness until we cannot separate ourselves from these feelings of distraught and thus our every movement, be it physical or spiritual, become tainted with them.

Any little thing will set us off, somehow reminding us of our woes and pathetic circumstances, enabling us to plunge further into the black-hole of despair, rendering us unable to free ourselves from the vicious cycle of self pity.

If we really have time to ponder, to reflect on our circumstances, are we able to, for a moment, release the restraints of despair and introspect on the reality of our conditions:

Are we really that bad off?
Is life really that horrible?

Many of us forget, so caught up in our woes, how fortunate we really are.

On pages 250 and 251 of my Sociology book, there is a photographic essay on the city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The photographs are not depicting normal touristy attractions, but a hidden place, so far off from the tourist map and one where many would not even venture to peek into, either literally or even vicariously. It is of the village within the city dump of Phnom Penh.

Yes, there are people living in the city dump, not just adults but also children.
There are photographs depicting their normal lives that revolve around carrying bags and bags of their newfound treasures from the trash of others; of children riding around in bikes, playing ontop of the road–which consist of nothing more than leveled trash; and of them eating and bathing amidst the mounds and mounds of garbage.

Now tell me, could any one of us really live like that?

The photographs also remind me of the conditions of my fellow Indonesians who live beside the foul-smelling river in Jakarta. I remember having to walk across a plank not even 5 inches wide, to get to this part of the city. Conveniently tucked away, underneath the numerous bridges, the houses are compact and close together. You cannot reach them by car, only by foot or by motorcycle. Inside, they mainly have one room as their living space. And this is shared by 4-5 people, sometimes more.

I wonder now if they ever cringe from the smell emanating from that foul river, so heavily infested with waste and garbage and maybe a mutant animal or two, or how they could withstand being flooded every time the rain comes down.

There is also this elderly lady who would, every morning, walk around the neighborhood of comfortable houses safely behind proudly erected gates and pick away at the trash left behind in the front, by the street. She would have with her this burlap bag, filled to the max and seemingly impossible for her to burden her small, tiny frame with. Somehow, though, she manages to do it, every morning, of every day, of every week, every month, and every year.

And then there’s the ‘Children of the Street’ (Anak Jalanan). They weave in and out of traffic–stopped momentarily by the red of the stoplight–and glance inside each waiting car to catch someone’s eye, hopefully a friendly eye. The clothes on their back are crumpled, wrinkled, and smudged with debris and mud from pollution. Despite their wretched conditions, they manage a smile, a big smile at either the occupants of the car or at one another.
Their playground is the side of the busy highway, beneath the toll road up above buzzing with cars going to and from the overly populated capital. Balls are thrown in the air to gleeful faces awaiting to catch them in return; a cluster of three gather to sit on the edge of the sidewalk engrossed in a conversation probably speckled with childhood imagination and tainted with the depressed state of their own realities.

I drove past them behind the gated comforts of my conditions back home and I wonder, with sympathetic curiousity, what are their lives like, what would it be like to be in their shoes for even one day, what would make me smile in those conditions? Would I be able to remain positive?

I may not know what life for them is like, and I may not be able to properly wear their shoes, but I do know that it does take more than a smidgen of strength to endure such hardships day in and day out–especially to endure it with a smile on your face and a positive spirit that refuses to be cut down no matter the obstacle facing it.

“..many great deeds are accomplished in times of squalid struggle…Hardship, loneliness, and penury are a battlefield which has its own heroes, sometimes greater than those lauded in history.

Strong rare characters are thus created; poverty nearly always a foster-mother, may become a true mother; distress may be the nursemaid of pride, and misfortune the milk that nourishes the spirits “– Les Miserables

- Fall 2007