THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POVERTY

There is a discomfort in your stomach; a gnawing ache at the pit of your intestines that divide the walls of your tummy into partitions, you can feel something small and alive moving there, causing you pain that you can’t alleviate. At this moment you know the signs and have become a pro at navigating through the pangs of hunger that has become more familiar than food. You lie down with a thin pillow tucked directly under you while trying to control your breathing so that the pain is ignorable as you close your eyes and water your dry throat dreaming of rice and beef stew with Maltina. Your lips move as you sleep, eating the delicious meal that is non-existent, hoping that it can somehow transform to the real thing, slowly riding out the turbulence in your tummy with hope that your next meal comes soon.

Its’ a bright new day as you rise from restless slumber, heading to the veranda to brush your teeth, shamelessly letting bits of fluoride find its way to your pallet so something goes down your throat other than your own spittle. After dressing up for school, you take two cubes of sugar and eat it greedily, drinking large gulps of water to wash it down as you set out for school. The day trickles by at snail pace as the words of the lecturer jumble like drone sounds in your ears because the only thing you can concentrate on is the raging battle in your stomach. You drag your weak body to a nearby classroom staying away from the sunrays as your skin complexion increasingly becomes paler when suddenly your knight in shining armour walks in the form of a neighbor who takes pity on you and offers you a free meal at her home. You wonder how you are going to walk 4km in the unforgiving glare of the sun on an empty tummy.

One foot in front of the other, breathe in and out slowly; keep your eyes down so the earth doesn’t spin. It takes 1 hour but you make it and almost immediately she is placing a plate of hot porridge in front of you. Excitedly, you pick up a spoon and try to shove a mouthful down your throat but your hands are shaking so badly, the food won’t connect with your mouth. You try again the second and third time yet the result is the same. Tears spring to your eyelid, dropping gently and mixing with the porridge and soon after a small spoonful makes it way to your mouth.

Poverty: Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or desired

A little while later, a Gentleman who wants to court you takes you to a nice restaurant for dinner. The décor is exquisite and the furniture expensive but when you glance at the prices of the meal on the menu your heart skips a beat and with your throat in your mouth you say:

Let’s go, this place is too much money to spend on food that will end up in the toilet.

He replies… don’t worry, I can afford it

You say… I don’t care, I’m uncomfortable eating here; I can cook a good pot of soup, stew and buy foodstuff with this money.

When you get home that night, it hits you that you have become conditioned not to spend good money on food or any luxury. The thought of paying N3,000 for a meal is absurd because even if your stomach is fine right now you can’t help but remember the gnawing pain that has become your friend in recent times.

A big brown envelope is clutched tightly underneath your arms. The goal for the day is clear; drop your CV off in as many places as possible around the Yaba/Surulere axis. All you have for this agenda is N500 yet you are determined somehow to make it work for food and transport. Starting off at Aguda, you enter into every business place and ask if they are hiring. First for a B.Sc. holder, when they say no you ask if they have clerical or cleaning work and beg the gateman to let you drop your CV. Slowly, you make your way to Bode Thomas and Adeniran Ogunsanya before heading to Stadium road just as the sun comes out to play. By this time, your feet have started burning in the thread bare shoes they have been forced into, sweat is sticking to your body in places that make you uncomfortable but you soldier on. When you finally get to Ojuelegba, you are hungry, thirsty, tired and disillusioned. While eating at a small roadside food vendor, fear starts to seep into your bones gradually till the panic chokes the beans in your throat making it taste like lead and suddenly you are not hungry anymore. The negative thoughts consume you; how are you going to make rent at the end of the year if you never find a job? Is this the new normal?

You pull out your wallet that looks like cheap leather from the 60s’ and retrieve the card of the Politician whom you hoped you would never have to call but kept for situations like this. When you get home, the smell of weed from the backyard of the public building where you reside wafts into your nose but it has long stopped bothering you. The thieves and miscreants who call the building home are smoking pot and doing drugs in the open. You change into your towel and get a bucket of water as you head to the block of four bathrooms and toilets that the entire building of more than a 100 tenants share. Using a long wrapper, you create a temporary door for the bathroom that has no door. You do not flinch when you notice two condoms lying on the floor of the bathroom because such sights have become common to you. When you finally lie down to sleep, you have to use a headset to block out the sound of the couple in the next room alternating all night between fighting, fist fights and violent sex.
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The politician welcomes you to his hotel room with a predatory smile on his face. The location that he chooses to meet is not lost on you but you are out of options so you send a silent prayer to God as you enter the room. He plies you with food and drinks he knows you have never seen before, flashes money before your eyes and hints at the affluence that awaits you if you agree to be his mistress.  He also entices you with a government job, weekly allowances and a car; simply put, he is offering you a way out of your miserable existence. The moral voice of your mother rings mentally in your ears as she warns you of the eternal damnation that awaits all those who sleep with married men or commit adultery. The politician sees that your resolve is weakening; for him the chase is half the fun, so he drops a check of N700,000 on the bedside table that you will walk away with if you open your legs for him.

You walk over in a daze, letting your shaky fingers gently caress the offer of more money than you have ever seen in your life. For a brief moment, you imagine how absolutely wonderful your life would become if you took the money and gave the politician what he wanted but that tiny bit of morality that poverty hasn’t infected is alive in you and grudgingly, you turn down the politician’s offer.

On your way home, you stop by a new generation church that your neighbor told you could help turn your fortunes around; apparently the pastor is the Prophet of prosperity. Even though you know that miracles does not often work that way, you walk into the church and join the congregation of desperate miracle seekers on dropping off what little money you have managed to save that week with the small hope that something good could happen.

Three months later, you get a job with a small publishing firm working as an assistant. The money isn’t much but its’ good enough yet you can’t enjoy it. You save every penny you can convinced on the need to have something for the rainy days. You save so much, your living conditions remain the same and you are afraid of becoming a mediocre employee stifled in small time corporate world. Will it ever be enough? How much is enough money to assuage your being that poverty is far behind you and your stomach is certain to growl no more?

Poverty messes with your head. When the most basic needs of a person are constantly not met, or you have to go without food and shelter… that’s poverty.

It pushes you to abandon your morals, beliefs and lifetime philosophies in favour of survival, doing things you never imagined.

When you turn to the church that you know is clearly manipulating your desperation; yet you feel so helpless and afraid that you go anyway and give all you have because the minister says it’s a reflection of your faith…

Poverty has a way of making you feel less than human; nothing is ever enough because you know what it’s like to go without for far too long. Hope becomes a dangerous emotion when dreams are illusions that distract from the reality of loneliness and helplessness. Like a deep, ugly well whose end you cannot see…each day convinces you that your situation is permanent and a better life becomes the talk of folly.