The inability of us privileged (and powerful) members of the human race to imagine what it’s like to live in poverty is probably the biggest obstacle in the way of our ability to be in solidarity with the poor. Our inability to be in solidarity with the poor is probably the main reason why it is almost impossible for us to be truly radical thus making way for radical political parties to flourish in our countries and in our governments. It is also probably the reason we are failing to confront the most important issues facing our planet.

I believe there is a certain fear of poverty among most privileged people (who in global terms can be described as those who don’t have to worry about their basic needs of shelter, food, water, clothing and employment being satisfied). Culturally in the North ‘poor’ has become the other, just like black, or female. Our media toys with the idea of these sectors of society but is rarely able, or willing, to portray them in a way that would allow us to understand the complexity of the issues involved.

And so ‘poor’ remains the unknown because we are not exposed to the reality of it, and because we are never made to feel it. Of course many people in the North are aware that, actually ‘poor’ (just like female and non-white) is the majority and significant numbers of us involved in social, environmental and global justice organizations would like to think we are in solidarity with the poor. But can we really be in solidarity with people we don’t know, whose lives we don’t understand and whose circumstances are so foreign to our own?

When I was a child I took part in a 24-hour fast organized by an international development agency “in solidarity” with the starving black children I saw on my TV. I was raising both awareness and money. The pride I felt of my philanthropic act was almost enough to block out my pangs of hunger. I felt extremely superior to all my other classmates who had probably never done anything for those African kids on the news. And as my reward I treated myself to a full fry up the next morning – fried bread, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans, grated cheese and a glass of full fat milk. 

But what did I actually learn from doing this? My idea of ‘poor’ was reaffirmed: victim, far away, hungry and, essentially, other. My idea of solidarity was to spend 24 hours without food and then several weeks feeling I’d done my bit to make the world OK again.
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I have been living in a rural community, El Limón, in the Estelí region of Nicaragua since 2003. My first year was spent with a local family of four in their home. In 2004 I moved into a small house made of wood with my partner Leopoldo, a Nicaraguan farmer who has lived in Limón with his extended family since 1986. There is no electricity or running water in Limón. There is no transport system and the roads are practically impassable by car, on horseback or on foot during a lot of the six month rainy season. Most residents fall into the categories of unemployed or underemployed. Food and cash are scarce. Many children are unable to attend school and few adults were able to complete primary school when they were children. Almost everyone seems to be ill most of the time though few can afford adequate healthcare.

For me life in Limón is a constant learning curve. Since moving there my ideas of ‘poor’ and of what solidarity means both to me and those I aim to be in solidarity with have changed and continue to change dramatically. Now I understand that poverty has many faces. As a child I learnt that poverty is hunger. But the reality of constant and long term hunger and its consequences were not things I had ever really thought about. As well as hunger I now understand that poverty is long hours of low (or un-) paid work every day with little or no appreciation of your efforts, it is ill health, low self-esteem, constant stress and the lack of adequate conditions to protect yourself from heat, or cold, or pain. It is losing everything you own to a hurricane and not wasting your time informing the authorities because you know they won’t do anything about it. In many ways poverty creates a sense of loss of control over one’s life. 

But by looking at poor peoples’ lives in this way we are still looking at them as victims. We are still focussing on their strife and not the fact that to live in poverty every day turns you into a very resourceful person able to deal with the challenges of extreme instability affecting almost all aspects of your life. Since moving to Limón my idea of the poor as victims has been turned on its head. My life before 2003 had been spent relying on efficient (or at least relatively effective) public and private services of health, education, water, electricity, police, transport, mail and telecommunications among others. Whenever I had a problem I looked up the number of a company or organization that could sort it out and paid them the established fee. In Limón I have had to learn how to sort out my problems on my own and to take responsibility for all my actions.

One example of this is the fact that there is no garbage collection in the community, which means that every single bit of paper, plastic, glass or metal that the residents introduce into their homes is going to stay there littering up the place until they do something about it (recycle it, reuse it or burn it – and if they choose to burn it they have to breathe in the fumes themselves).

Now I understand that living in poverty, particularly (though not exclusively) in a rural context, forces people into a constant state of reflection about the impact they are having on their local environment and how to reduce damaging trends. With no clean water coming out of your tap, it is unlikely you are going to continue using the nearest river as a sewer or a dumping ground for garbage.

As well as creating an infinitely more complex set of circumstances than I had ever encountered, poverty is a phenomenon in a constant process of evolution. One of the most unexpected things I have learnt since living in Nicaragua is that thirty years ago very few people went hungry. “Only the lazy had no food on their table,” is a phrase I often hear from the over thirties reminiscing about life during Nicaragua’s recent past. Of course there have always been occasional droughts and devastating outbreaks of pests which destroy huge amounts of crops. But even when crops failed peasant families got by on wild fruits and vegetables. In today’s world the kind of extreme poverty I’ve described is more often than not linked to environmental destruction. 
Today the obstacles facing Nicaragua’s poor are not the same as thirty years ago under the Somoza dictatorship. Before the triumph of the popular Sandinista revolution in 1979 peasants had no political rights, but the majority had plentiful food and water and lived in an environment which did not necessarily reek havoc on their physical health. Since 1990 and the subsequent election of three US backed neo liberal governments the rate of destruction of the ecosystem (as a result of mass deforestation and generalized contamination of water through unsustainable agricultural and industrial practices among other factors) has been shocking.

According to the locals around 90% of trees in the Estelí region have been cut down over the last forty years and about the same percentage of natural water sources (springs, rivers and water holes) have dried up, while the few that remain are contaminated and pose a threat to human health when consumed. This rapid environmental destruction twinned with a huge reduction in public spending (as a result of IMF conditioning on loans) has brought unprecedented crisis to the Nicaraguan countryside. Whereas before it was possible to survive on wild fruits and vegetables when crops failed, today you are hard pushed to find something edible on the dehydrated branches of the few remaining trees in the desert land Estelí becomes during the dry season. Whereas before fresh water was plentiful and there was no need for wells or water systems in the countryside, today the lack of them means residents are forced to drink contaminated water or, in some cases simply go without. (Interestingly when I took part in the 24 hour fast I was told that the activity did not pose a health risk to children. I wonder how many people would sign up to a dehydration day or a competition to see who could drink the most contaminated water.)

During my time in Limón I have learnt how to get water from a river that has dried up. I have learnt how to orientate my way along a kilometer of two feet deep mud without getting my shoes dirty. I know how to cure a range of physical ills using the weeds in my garden. I have learnt that local geographical knowledge is far more important than money in a desperate situation. I have learnt the benefits and virtues of understanding and taking control of my impact on the environment. And I have found myself asking whether this is solidarity with the poor or training for my future. Because, whether we consider ourselves citizens of the first or third world is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The planet we share and its unique ecosystem are showing unmistakable signs of exhaustion.

I clearly remember one journalist’s comment (“we are all residents of New Orleans”) in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last October. True, but even more frightening is the idea that we are all residents of Nicaragua, Bolivia, China, India or Zimbabwe where the process of environmental degradation is so advanced in some areas that every day is like the aftermath of a catastrophic hurricane or other natural disaster (little access to food, no access to clean water, constant outbreaks of disease related to lack of sanitation, etc.).

As increasingly large areas of the planet become uninhabitable, poverty (in the environmental sense of the word) is getting closer to home. It is time to stop believing the hunger, thirst, illness and dispossession of the poor in Kenya, Honduras, Afghanistan, Thailand and Mozambique aren’t ours to share.
I have come to the conclusion that my attempt to be in solidarity with those currently facing the horrendous effects of an unsustainable global system is an expression of my desire to preserve my own life. At present it is an option for the privileged to share the hardship of the majority. But if we continue to ignore the need for drastic change our options will be closed off. We will no longer be able to think of poverty as the other.
Hannah Given-Wilson is a musician, activist and writer who lives in a small rural community in Nicaragua. 

 

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