Hunger

I was just reading Katie Tricarico's blog and read her post today about a boy who just died of starvation. It's really shaken me up; I knew this kid, Simon Peter. He's one of the kids I recognized instantly when I came back this year. Anyway, his father was (is?) a blind man who shelled g-nuts (peanuts) and other jobs that blind or otherwise handicapped people could get paid for. His mother, Regina, worked for the mission for a little while, then requested advance pay for a trip, and never came back. That was about five or six months ago. She took some of her younger kids with, I think, but Simon and his older sister were left to fend for themselves.

I honestly don't know it happened that no one helped him, and I'm sure everyone else is wondering that, too. It's hard to know who's truly needy in a culture where no one has very much, and hunger is still very prevalent, even with food programs and so on. But the thought of this kid starving just horrifies me, I guess because I knew him somehow well.