*C'est la vie*! *Life*!

Talking about the The Melodrama Jukebox, I read the “beggars post”. Then went to lunch with a friend. She was mad at me. I wasn't listening to her. She was talking about her man. Normal. Not the fact that I wasn't listening because she was talking about her man. The fact that I wouldn't be listening because I'd read a post before lunch. They get me thinking. They make me ponder. I tune out of futile conversations like talking about my girls' men.

So, I've been thinking. J, I know what you mean by poor beggars sometimes scaring you. I don't know what goes through your mind but what goes through mine is.... scary. Am sometimes also disgusted at myself for being disgusted by some of them. That's when I turn objective and think: “why don't they just try and get a job?” or the like. Being objective right now, I must say, it's with good reason that react the way I do sometimes. Wanna hear about it? No? Never mind, here goes:

• My mum's best friend's daughter's mother-in-law (get the picture) was telling me about this poor woman who comes to her place regularly for a little something. She was telling me how “poor” this “poor” woman was, so poor she was pulling at her dress and asking for it and trying to pull her slippers form her feet all the while going on about her miserable life. I just stare at her. She's actually on the brink of tearing so sad she is about this “poor creature”.

• I live in a town called Quatre Bornes. It's nicknamed, “La Ville des Fleurs” - The Flower Town. We have our she'-always-been-there-beggar. A woman everybody calls “Madame Balaies” (Mrs Brooms). I think she's crazy. She is always stationed at the Avenue Orchidée with her brooms and as soon as the cars stop she goes about knocking on windows or proffering her hand through them palm up for a rupee. Sad? I used to feel that way too about her till on our way from the market one day, my mum handed her a bag full of some of the fruits we'd just bought. She took the bag. Peered inside it. Handed it Back to my mum. “Give the money”, she said to my mum. We walked away. We gave her no cent. My landlord who's a police inspector told us “Madame Balaies” has bungalows at the seaside and a very fat bank account.

• My first job was in a Freight and cargo office. I had to take the bus from Quatre Bornes to Port Louis. That's the Capital. Am on the bus stop one day running late. A 4x4 stops. A woman gets off. She's in rags. She goes straight to the waiting-for-the-bus people and starts begging. The 4x4 pulls away. Methinks: “Gentleman, giving poor beggar a ride!” How wrong. Turns out the guy was the woman's son. She's not deranged. She just “likes” begging.

   

That's enough. I did a little bit of Economy in High School. I learned the concept of wrong allocation of resources which I'd figured out before taking the class. There are more poor people that rich people in the world is what the concept is all about. The poor getting poorer and poorer and the rich getting richer and richer. Not fair but the sad truth.

Nowadays, India is massively investing in Mauritius. They're good in everything. Technology. Economy. Finances. I always wonder how come there are so many poor people in India with all the expertise they have.

You know what they do in India? You have people mutilating themselves, imputing a leg, an arm, whatever to be credible enough for a poor. For a cent. For a rupee. You have baby loaning “enterprises”. You're a woman. You don't look pitiful enough. You're loaned a baby. People feel more empathy towards your misery then. To get the full impact feed and give not the child anything to drink. He has to be crying to attract enough attention. That's sad. That makes me feel mad. Not at the poor.

I think that we shouldn't take anything for granted. You got a roof over your head. You have a family. You have enough not to starve. Be grateful. I have a good friend. She lives in house made of sheets of metal (tôle). Right in the middle of “La Ville des Fleurs”. Imagine living in such a house by any time of the year. Heat of Cold.

Am sometimes sad. I feel sorry for myself. I feel I've been robbed of an otherwise golden future. We've been having problems. So there was no question of going to University. Cost too much. I feel sorry and my mum is mad at my dad. She believes its his fault. Then i remember how it was like back there in Niger. We attended this primary school I'll remember as long as I live. We (my sister, me and our friend A) were the only one's to bring lunch at school. Al lunch time our lunch was stolen. The thieves would eat our lunches while looking at us, licking fingers and burping. They had no lunch. No money. Many of the boys came to school wearing underpants only. ONLY. Carrying their slates and chalk. They, of course, had no books, no copybooks, no pencils, no nothing.....

I remember and laugh at myself. Felling sorry for myself is something am trying hard to resist indulging in......