Chatting with F during lunch :
- - Some kids were pulling faces at me this morning on road 113! So I replied the same way.
- Really? Kids on road 113? Is there a school there?
- No, they were picking up garbage…
Probably the most disturbing thing to see, yet so common around here, kids under 10, pacing up and down the streets, one old jute bag resting on their shoulder, looking for valuable pieces of garbage to pick up and sell to scrap dealers (valuable as in plastic wraps or metal cans, don’t think people let their old computers to rot on the pavement like in France). Always lonely and dirty, obviously skipping school by lack of money (yeah, yeah, free and mandatory school for all… big dream) and worst of all, with very low chances to access another future than spending their life on the street.
I’m not really bothered by beggars, garbage pickers or other street dwellers, you sadly become very fast used to it when you live in a poor country – and you ignore them when you live in a rich country, even sadder – but seeing kids in a state of extreme poverty and abandon has always striken a sensitive chord in me.
