It is one thing seeing this image in a world vision ad and a totally different thing taking this photo. What is a photo? It can communicate emotion and it can visually display a situation. This photo in no way tells the truth of the situation. Why was this kid crying? Why does any baby cry? Because that’s what kids do. Kids also play and they are also annoying.
A photo cannot communicate the smell of a slum built over a sewer. The smell of a sewer slum, where people work 12 hour days collecting rubbish, to pay rent.. to live over a sewer. One week after visiting this slum and I feel I can talk about it. It is too much to take in at first, because it simply does not make sense why anyone should have to live on top of sewerage.
The smell made me lose site of where I was. I was overwhelmed by the flies landing on my face and I couldn’t take in the environment around me. My natural response to this situation is to vomit. Every second I was in there I wanted to vomit as some sort of expression of emotion or because I felt sick from lack of air. Being in the slum was like when you hold your breath while driving through a tunnel, you can’t wait till it’s over so you can breathe again.
The people living there were generally friendly, they would look at you and sometimes smile. The kids were the same as any other normal kids, they didn’t know anything else and they would run around playing games. They loved me taking photos of them and found it hilarious when they slapped my legs after I took a photo.
There was one lady who at the time made me really uncomfortable. She was starting at me the whole time we were under a shack with the group. She looked confused or disgusted at me. At first I just thought she was typically trying to make me feel sorry for her so I would give her money: in Cambodia, many people are well trained in this art.
This woman gets up every day to walk around the hot street gathering rubbish, to come home to sort through the rubbish to sell to the dump. This place is her home, she doesn’t get to visit for an hour then have a shower. She was born into a rut of poverty and all she has ever known is working long hard days collecting rubbish and living over a sewer. Study was never an opportunity, living a basic lifestyle was never an option. I would be confused seeing me stroll through her house with my fancy camera.
These images on world vision ads, yes they make people to put their hands in their pockets, but all kids cry. Our money isn’t going to stop the kid crying but it may build a house, supply water or send a kid to school and this is good. In reality we are all the same, kids cry here too.
PROVERBS 10:15
