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A pair of blue frames lies just before me
The glass isn’t visible
What poor child is disabled because he or she can’t see?
How many children around the world don’t have access to an eye doctor?
These children are burdened instead with enduring a life close to blindness.
All because of circumstance
All because they weren’t lucky enough to be born in the west
with parents who had health care
Be thankful that you were taken care of
And have the gift of sight
A rubber soul lies before me
Overturned and abandoned in the sand
What poor child is stuck walking barefoot over
Cow manure, thorns, and ground that burns their feet.
It’s hot like the metal seatbelts on summer days
These children are burdened forced to endure this pain
Are they walking prematurely in hell?
Just because of circumstance?
Just because they were born part of the underprivileged?
Where’s Nike? Addias? Sketchers?
Those brands children in the west love.
10-year-olds here have never worn these shoes
Or seen them in a mall
When do they get their break in life?
God knows they’ve been waiting longer than most.
A mother of three lies on a mat
Her arms angled at 45 degrees
There’s sweat forming on her forehead
Her eldest daughter, just 15, is stationed at her feet
Telling her to push
She can see its head she says
Just one more push
There is no pain meds for her
No electricity
No ice chips
No air conditioning.
This woman’s is burdened, forced to give birth at home
In the dark while wearing a veil
She must endure this pain and focus on her baby
She pushes once more and hears the child cry
Her daughter say’s that she had a girl.
She’ll name it Zarah
Evan after the hours of labor she smiles
Thanking Allah for her blessing.
75 13-year-olds are stuffed like sardines in a can
There backs straight
Their knees bent
Their eyes glued to their teacher
Not a chock board or a projector.
There aren’t any fancy three ring binders in sight
The morning breeze rustles their veils
The birds station themselves on the classroom wall
There is no roof or windows in sight
The building looks like it was bombed
But it is eroding because of time and abandonment
These kids are burdened with an inadequate school
Yet they still show up everyday
They endure the sweating and the stiff shoulders
Knowing from day one that the odds aren’t in their favor
Only a few will graduate and head to college
What will happen to the rest?
A fifty-year-old woman sits down
Exhausted from carrying water across town
She opens her textbook in-between rounds of tea
She’s learning how to write the Latin numbers
They seem strange and foreign to her
She struggles but continues to trace them
Over and over
That’s all we can ask for right?
A willingness to beat the odds and give yourself an education
It makes you wonder what the educational system in Mauritania was like 40 years ago.
How many women weren’t allowed to go to school?
They’re burdened instead to endure tedious household chores.
Wouldn’t you feel abandoned?
How could you reach your potential?
If those doors are slammed shut at an early age
