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A few weeks ago I wrote this post on a BBC photo journal on street kids living in 
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This week BBC has a new photo journal set in Ethiopia, this one titled “Ethiopia Shoe Shine Girl”.
The pictures and the accompanying text tell the story of 12 year old Meskerem, a girl whose father has died, and whose mother’s “job” is to collect rubbish, which pays about the equivalent of $7.50 a month. The mother’s income is not enough to support the family, so as is common in Ethiopia and other poverty-stricken countries, the children also work to help support the family.
The journal points out that Meskerem lives with her mother and four siblings and an uncle in a one room mud hut in Addis, in a “sprawling shanty area just behind the five-star Sheraton hotel”.
This really struck me because I have been there. I have been at the gate of the Sheraton, and looked one direction to see outrageous wealth and luxury, and turned my head the other way to see the polar opposite of outrageous poverty and suffering.
I read this journal and looked at these photos and pictures of this girl and her family living there and it brings back many of the feelings I had while in Addis and when we first returned home. This girl shines shoes on a busy city street after school every day and all weekend long so her family can eat and she can pay her “fees” to go to school. She does so even though the “competition” (shoe shine boys) give her grief, and passer-bys are often cruel to her. She is out there despite the fact that it is risky for young girls to be out on the street alone because of the risk of abduction, for the purpose of making the girl a bride.
I can’t help but look at my 11 year old daughter, who this week is going to science camp and next week will get to go to New York to visit grandparents and see the sites. I can’t help but look at all of luxuries she has in life and all of the things that we take for granted, like medical care and school and relative safety outside our own front doors. I try to imagine my Mercades working on a city street seven days a week for pennies just so our family can survive, and I am sad for Meskerem and all of the other children like her who have very small child hoods. I feel sad for her mom and the reality she has to raise her kids in. I think about all of the families that aren’t able to find a way to collect rubbish and shine shoes to make ends meet and make the heart breaking choice to bring their children to an orphanage in hopes that they will be adopted and find a better life.
I think about these things and I feel really dang lucky.
*Photo above is from the BBC photo journal
