Surviving on Hope - Karen Li

People sometimes will have to face an expected or unexpected event and handle it without any other choices. When the event is a long-term effect, then the only way out is to survive on hope. Everyone has hope, but to the African children, their only hope comes from their remote supporters. 

We live in a world where we know how to prevent extremely hunger, yet people still die from a lack of food. In 2011, when a hunger crisis attacked The Horn of Africa, approximately 13 million children were impacted severely. In parts of West Africa, lack of rain and failing crops had left families struggling for food. Water shortages are adding to the misery for children and families in Africa, which caused it almost impossible to live on. Some were unable to hold on while some lasted longer for their unseen hope. 

As foreigners, we couldn’t understand African children’s life unless we experience it ourselves. But there is a photographer who went through the whole famine with African children. He’d seen them getting terrible diseases; he’d seen them fighting to get the limited resources; he’d seen mothers crying for their dead children; he’d even seen children die in front of his eyes. Once when going out to take pictures, he accidentally saw a bloody scene which he will never forget in the rest of his life—there was a throng of condors waiting patiently beside a dying African child. He couldn’t help with that little amount of food he’d got, but he couldn’t leave either. So the photographer sat beside the bushes and watched. For a millisecond, he suddenly noticed something special in the child’s eyes—it was a stray of blind hope. Their eyes met as the child struggled to get away from the condors. His bony legs kicking forceless on the ground, his arms stretched out trying to get some help and attention from the photographer. However, he twitched suddenly and then gasped for his last breathe. The blind hope faded and was replaced by a gravely blank stare. As soon the child stopped moving, the throng of condors rushed toward the corpse and started their meal. The photographer sat there, stiffed and unmovable. He sobbed silently, for the child, also for the whole African children who had to live in this kind of crisis. The child would’ve died long time ago, but there was a hope that convinced him to last longer.  

There are people in this world that lives just for unseen hope, while we live in a world that is way better. We should be graceful for what we have instead of taking it for granted. In a way, we all should be happy for ourselves.