MORE HUMANITY, LESS SELFISHNESS
In this picture we can see an elder man sitting in the sidewalk dressed with a black, short-sleeved, broken, dirty t-shirt with some light brown, dirty pair of trousers. He is not wearing shoes and so his feet looks really nasty and dirty, his black shoes are right next to him above the sidewalk. This elder man has a cup of coffee and a glass of water next to him. He is smoking as he has a cigarette on his hand. Besides, we can see an elder woman lying on the floor with her head on the top of a bag. She is wearing a long, black, dirty dress with a huge, long, brown, dirty, broken jacket. She has a bottle of water next to her. Moreover, she has a big bucket full of red, beautiful roses. They are both lying on the top of a paperboard in the sidewalk of the street. In the background of the picture I can see a huge glass full of graffiti. Reflected in the glass there are many people who seem to be looking at a monument or a building.
Both, the elder man and the elder woman seem to be really sad, exhausted and as if they could not handle any more the situation they are going through. This makes me thing that they may have been enduring this situation for a long time now. I am moved by the feeling that they might be fed up with the situation and feel miserable and abandoned by the society. This photo makes me think that they both may know each other; they could be a marriage. He could be thinking about how life sucks at certain points where one day you find yourself having a fairly pleasant and common life, with a stable job and with your lovely family, and another day you wake up and everything is messed up. How can life change so dramatically? How can life be so unfair to some people? I don't know what this man went through, but I'm sure that he could have asked himself these questions at least once. Besides, she must feel, as well, really sad and down in the dumbs. She is looking at the ceiling and may be thinking about what she could do to get over this harsh situation and start a new life where she is happy and at least can have somewhere to go or something to eat, not just the street. Or maybe she is thinking right the opposite way, maybe she doesn't have hope anymore and just has forced herself to accept the situation she is going through. Both of them must be feeling really bad and sad and with no energy nor positivism to face anything else. They both look as if they had given up long time ago, there’s no sign of hope in her glance.
I think poverty is a serious issue of our time. We cannot keep on acting as if nothing is happening or turning a blind eye as a lot of people cannot afford to feed themselves or their families, afford medicine, transportation, shelter, child care. Yet, too many people in positions of power believe others are poor because they choose to be, that they are unworthy of help or a policy shift that might lift them up. We need to change this, everyone deserves to be helped, no one is unworthy of help as we are all human beings and we cannot treat the homeless people as if they don’t exist or as if they don’t matter at all. So, let’s start being more humans and stop acting as selfish rats.