IsPoverty?

　　Is Poverty?

　　You ask me what is poverty?Listen to me.  Here I am dirty,smelly, and with no "proper" under-

　　wear on and with the stench of my rotting teeth near you. I will tell you. Listen to me. Listen without pity. I cannot use your pity. Listen with understanding. Put yourself in my dirty, worn-out, ill-fitting shoes, and hear me.

　　Poverty is getting up every morning from a dirty and illness-stained mattress. The sheets have long since been used for diapers. Poverty is living in a smell that never leaves.This is a smell of urine, sour milk, and spoiling food sometimes joined with the strong smell of long-cooked onions. Onions are cheap. If you have smelled this smell, you did not know how it came. It is the smell of the outdoor privy. It is the smell of young children who cannot walk the long dark way in the night. It is the smell of the mattresses where years of "accidents" have happened. It is the smell of the milk which has gone sour because the refrigerator long has not worked, and it costs money to get it fixed. It is the smell of rotting garbage. I could bury it, but where is the shovel? Shovels cost money.

　　Poverty is looking into a black future. Your children won't play with my boys. They will turn to other boys who steal to get what they want. I can already see them behind the bars of their prison instead of behind the bars of my poverty.Or they will turn to the freedom of alcohol or drugs, and find themselves enslaved. And my daughter? At best, there is for her a life like mine.

　　Poverty is an acid that drips on pride until all pride is worn away. Poverty is a chisel that chips on honor until honor is worn away. Some of you say that you would do something in my situation, and maybe you would, for the first week or the first month, but for year after year after year?

　　I have come out of my despair to tell you this. Remember I did not come from another place or another time. Others like me are all around you. Look at us with an angry heart, anger that will help you and help me. Anger that will let you tell of me. The poor are always silent. Can you be silent,too?

　　什么是貧窮?

　　你問我什么是貧窮?聽著�，F(xiàn)在我就在你旁邊，臟兮兮，臭烘烘，沒有“合適的”內(nèi)衣褲可穿，滿口爛牙散發(fā)著臭味。我來告訴你。聽我說。只管聽，別同情。你的同情對我無用。請帶著理解的心來聽。你自己穿上我那又臟又破，又不合腳的鞋，然后聽我說。

　　貧窮就是每天早晨從粘滿污垢和病菌的床墊上起床。床單早被用做了尿布。貧窮就是住在永不消散的異味中。這是一種混雜了尿味、酸牛奶味和食物的餿味，有時還加上濃烈的煮了很久的洋蔥的味道。洋蔥便宜。即使你已經(jīng)聞到了這股味，你過去是不會知道它是怎么來的。那是屋外茅廁的味道；那是晚上還不能走長長的夜路的年齡很小的小孩的味道；那是年復一年不斷有“意外事故”在上面發(fā)生的床墊的味道；那是早就壞了的冰箱里牛奶變酸了的味道，而修冰箱也要花錢；那是腐壞的垃圾的味道。我可以把垃圾埋了，但哪兒有鏟子呢?買鏟子也要錢。

　　我是出于自身的失望來告訴你這些的。記住，我不是來自另一個空間或另一個時間的人。在你周圍還有其他像我一樣的人。請心中充滿怒火地看著我們，憤怒對你對我都有幫助。憤怒會讓你講述我的故事。窮人總是沉默的。你也能保持沉默嗎?