Countdown to Christmas

It's been a few days already... I was unable to post due to lack of connection at my place.

We had to cheat a little since I didn't have everything I needed to go ahead with the Advent Calendar project from 1st December. We put everything together on Saturday morning instead. Here is the calendar in the making: I bought an assortment of Canson strong paper and cut stars for each day until 24 December.

Then I wrapped items that I thought could be useful in any household in pieces of wax print and hung one under each star.

The idea is that every day, we'll remove the gift and hang a Christmas decoration instead. Since the gift for 1st December was a bucket, we'll fill it with every gift we remove from the wall. As soon as possible after 24 December, we'll wrap the bucket nicely and take it to a Catholic sisters' dispensary for them to decide who among the underprivileged young mothers they help could best benefit from our effort.

1 December was an empty bucket.

2 December was powdered milk.

3 December was corned beef.

4 December was tinned tomato.

Now that we've caught up with the actual calendar, I will post pictures of the bucket being filled every day too.

Adversity

There are about 24 hours between these two pictures:

What can be worse than extreme poverty? Bad weather didn't allow my neighbour any respite.

A sobering lesson in relativity for me who have been crying murder because of the shoddy building of my apartment which was soaked with rainwater with all doors and windows shut.

Documenting extreme poverty

A few weeks ago, I posted a picture on Facebook with a caption saying "You say you're poor. What about him?". It shows a makeshift dwelling abutting on a fencewall, just opposite the apartment building where I currently live.

A couple of days ago, I noticed that the owners of the fenced property were preparing to do some building work. 

The shack had to go.

But not very far. Very soon I saw that something looking like foundations was being dug alongside another fence wall, about 50 meters farther on the same street.

I decided to document the effort.

How does someone who has virtually nothing manage when the place they call home is destroyed.

There was a heap of plastic bags and bedding packed alongside the opposite wall for the duration of the rebuilding. Decency prevented me from taking a picture.

Within less than 48 hours, a "new" shack was built with the bits and pieces retrieved from the previous one.

This is my neighbour's new place of abode as of this morning.

I felt it important to document extreme poverty. My wish is that in a few years we will all look at these pictures shaking our heads and wondering how it was possible at all, because we won't even remember such situations. But I'm a daydreamer.