Flea-ing Poverty!

We have all seen a flea. Most have been bitten by one. But have you ever ‘experienced’ a sand-flea, also known as a jigger? Here in Madagascar they are called, parasy afrikana, that is the African Flea! (In actual fact they come from South America. See: Citation)

The female flee burrows into the skin of a host, human or animal. This causes intense irritation. In theory, the flea’s body gets expelled from the skin after the flee dies. However severe infections can follow. (Do you remember Ps Martin from Ankarongana? He told me that people lose toes and even feet because of this problem!)

As you can see from these pictures, it does not look very nice! Here you can read about a case series from Brazil.

This week, there was a article in one of the news papers about a women who had jigger-fleas in her feet. The unusual thing was not that she had jigger fleas, but that she had 263 of these fleas! Can you imagine that? I must have hurt! Poor women!

One of the reasons why people get these fleas are because they do not where shoes. People living in rural areas often NEVER wear shoes! I think that there are two reasons as to why they don’t wear shoes.

The first has to do with the local customs. It is not the way they do it.

The second has to do with money! They can not afford decent shoes! Furthermore they cannot afford treatment and prevention. They can also not treat their pets and work animals. Nor can they treat the cause.

I recently came across some interesting statistics. (These were shamelessly copied from: site

• Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.
• The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.
• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
• Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
• 51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations.
• The wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation.
• The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money.
• 20% of the population in the developed nations, consume 86% of the world’s goods.
• In 1960, the 20% of the world’s people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% — in 1997, 74 times as much.
• “The lives of 1.7 million children will be needlessly lost this year [2000] because world governments have failed to reduce poverty levels”
• The developing world now spends $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants.
• A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people.
• “The 48 poorest countries account for less than 0.4 per cent of global exports.”
• “The combined wealth of the world’s 200 richest people hit $1 trillion in 1999; the combined incomes of the 582 million people living in the 43 least developed countries is $146 billion.”
• “Of all human rights failures today, those in economic and social areas affect by far the larger number and are the most widespread across the world’s nations and large numbers of people.”
• “Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.”
• “According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”

If you visit the site were I saw this, you will find many more interesting, or disgusting facts!

Jesus was a friend of the poor. In fact look what he said the first time he spoke in public in the Gospel according to Luke:

God’s Spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, “This is God’s year to act!”
(Luk 4:18-19)

Jesus did not just tolerate the poor. He did not just talk about poor people. He actively chose them and sought them out. (This is called the God’s Preferential option for the poor.)

To find out more about this email me and I’ll try to help, but I have to go now. One of those pesky beggars are banging on my door, disturbing my peace.