An Interview with a Beggar

And, he answered,

“Every Dawn is a bitter pill for me to take. It`s waking up each morning and asking myself the yesterday`s question, “Will I still live for this day?”. For people with roof over their heads, this time already means breakfast. But for me, anytime for meal is of no significance. I could hardly remember the last decent meal I had. The only human right the world gives me is having `just enough’….just enough to put something in my empty stomach. However, the world also offers me a lot of resources- the rubbish bin, the outdoor restaurant`s left-over, and my last resort–the proceeds from my begging. Each hard day kills me to death.

Most people think that my `job’ is the easiest job on earth. If that would be the case, I have to be the richest ”dying man”. Well, they should hear me talking. Begging is the most degrading and painful work anyone could ever have. Let them say, I am SLACK. That`s their prerogative. I am used to being told by that name anyway.

I never planned or dreamed to be a beggar, even once in my life. Never would I ever be…if only I had choice. Being a beggar is not a reflex event in an unfortunate person`s life. It has also a process. God knows I tried every effort to detour to this condition I have right now. But, who can ever give a livelihood chance to a man who could not even write or read his name? If ever there are, I never met one. I thought the city would be the best place for me and for my family to live in. By all means, we left the far flung barrio we once dwelt. There are only two things the people in that remote village know how to get through the day- planting and fishing- which I found out, some ten years ago, that I could never do here in metro.

Yes, I had a family. Ten years ago. The nerve chilling coldness of the night, the scarcity of food and something liquid to drink, the hostility of the ill-mannered urban people, and all the filthiness of this life, devoured my family. One by one. I remember my new born baby. He still looked adorable even when he was inside the small carton coffin I made for his burial. He died because of pneumonia. My oldest child, she was three years old then when she followed after the death of her baby brother. She died of starvation. I blame myself for her death; if only I had given the piece of bread I dug down from the garbage bag nearby ten minutes earlier, my daughter would have survived the intense hunger. My wife?…she`s with me alive- if you can say that being out-of her mind but breathing is still living.