Poverty In Africa

POVERTY IN AFRICA Nzongi N.Mwero Large population live in slums, Youth unemployment looms, Illiteracy looms, Poor health standards zooms, In Africa poverty has rooms A protein starvation diseases on the rise, Due to a harsh natural environmental and subsistence level, And semi skilled farming methods, Many rely mainly on their primitive agriculture to stay alive, Most Africans scratch out a living, In ways that seem to reward inadequate diets Dirty ragged children scattered on the dust road, Scrambling for orange peelings, That tourists had thrown on the dust road, Children are weakened, And mentally retarded, Prematurely aged with yellow hair, No clothing on the body, The baby’s stomach bulged on their mother’s back, Their arms and legs looked like sticks, Although six and a half month old, Their ringles skin and thin legs gives no chance to crawl, Their closed mouth give no chance to sucker A man walks along a path feeling very thirsty, Looking tap water to quench his thirsty, Ready to quench even the coloured salty water, Because no single coin in his pocket A woman thinks to send her kids to school, But she finds in her cube no stool, She thinks and decides to remain cool, And goes for cooking roots in the bush, With her weak kid on her back crying for food A man in his thatched hut with holes around it, Bow and arrow in his back, Ready to hunt any rodent in the bush, Ready to trap any insect that comes across, In the home ,no food no water and no school for his kids In cities and towns beggars are scattered, Their spindly limbs reach out for a coin, A piece of bread that might extension of life for few hours, Dead brothers and sisters lying on the streets, Not for bullets but due to hunger, Waiting to be picked up for their painless journey, Poverty is a war and has been a war for decades