A Thing or Two About Poverty

"Hardcore."
Was the first thing I thought when I heard of Marianette Amper's suicide. I mean here I am existential and all while a twelve year old girl has resolved that life isn't worth living.

Hardcore.

***

Her story wasn't my first encounter of suicidal musings over a diary (We all have entries like that, though she was one of the few who followed through). My youngest sister talked of killing herself at one point when we were young. She wrote it in her diary that my other sibling read. I remember it because I was the primary reason for her suicide. Yeah. She and I are entangled in this bunso-panganay animosity thread. I dismissed it as pathetic when I heard it at first but secretly I was disturbed. So after that I tried to be a lot more nicer to her--we were young ok.

***

I can't imagine how hopeless Marianne must have felt. To a little degree I can relate to her qualms about not getting money for school projects. But no money for pamasahe? 40 pesos a day for a living?

shit.

What makes me sad about her story is that she must have valued her education a lot. It was her only hope. It was her ticket out. And because of her poverty she couldn't even experience it?


***

I always feel a degree of respect for people who endured a lot just to finish school. Those people who worked to pay for their tuition etc. These are the kind of people, more often than not, you can count on.

Sometimes I can't feel anything but irritation to those rich students/people who dismiss poverty as something they've experienced, especially when the "experience" was something like visiting impoverished slums or not being able to afford gas money for a year.

Its not their fault I know. I just hate it that they still have the luxury to say it so lightly. For me you haven't experienced poverty if you go home and sleep in your nice little homes period.


Like Marianette. She had to wake up every morning to it--for twelve years.
Rest in Peace.