This seems a dreadful way to start my new Philippines web page, but as you all know me well by now, I do not hide truths and I very rarely if ever have told a lie. This sad poem was written by my friend Willowdown, whom I'm sure you have all met on his "Classic Willowdown" web page further up Dodie's World, Homepage one I think.
I will not be continuing in this fain but I do despair at the thought of children dying for lack of adult care.
Enough I am to bed , doctors in the morning, so see you all tomorrow afternoon.
The Beggar Girl
A young child stands on a busy pavement outside the market, a tin cup in her hand as the hectic crowd parts and streams round her. She may as well be an inanimate stone in a fast rushing river - but she is not, she is a small little girle, withdrawn and shrunken into herself, confused, lost and traumatised by the noise and swarming bustle her mother has left her in.
The life of a beggar starts young, and she has not yet learned the rules.
A few yards down the street , on another invisible island of dirty pavement, an older girl lays on her stomach tickling her naked four month old brother, her tin-can momentarily forgotten in a moment of sisterly affection.
A foreign tourist passes by arm in arm with his local prostitute "girl-friend" and drops a coin into her cup. At the end of the day, the working mothers will come to collect their children...
A short time in the life of a child in Manila.
Willow© 1997
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