Lacking

When I was little and we were taught about starvation and malnutrition at church, people always talked about starving children in Africa. We were showed pictures of people in rundown buildings surrounded by dunes of sand. Sand as far as the eye could see. Starving children in the deserts of Africa.

I’m not saying that there aren’t starving children in Africa, but what we were taught wasn’t very accurate. First of all, Africa isn’t a country, it’s a continent. Another note about Africa: It is not one giant desert. There are many different countries and climates within Africa. Secondly, children aren’t the only ones who starve. Adults can starve too, but the children get attention in the media because they draw more sympathy. Thirdly, children (people) do not starve ONLY in Africa. There are starving and malnourished people all over the world, including the USA. People don’t have to be in deserts to starve either.

So, I looked up the definition for “desert” on dictionary.com, and here was the first result I got:

A region so arid because of little rainfall that it supports only sparse and widely spaced vegetation or no vegetation at all.

However, there is another definition that I found for desert:

                        Any place lacking in something”

            Haiti definitely has lacking in things. This is especially true of Cité Soleil, which is where we went today to help with the water truck. There were signs of lack all around. Lack of food, lack of water (we were bringing water to the people for a reason), lack of clothing, lack of cleanliness, lack of electricity, lack of health, lack of peace. Although Haiti is not a desert by geological definitions, it is a desert in many other ways.

            Maybe when people are starving, that results from a lack of something, a metaphorical desert. There must be a lack of something for them to be malnourished or starving. So although people don’t have to be in a geological desert to starve, starvation occurs because of deserts (the metaphorical kind). Many people work to get rid of metaphorical deserts, maybe someday in the future we will be free of all deserts, besides the geological ones.

Elena Getchell