What is poverty? 

We have to deal with the uncomfortable fact,  that even if we are living on probably the lowest budget in our lifetime, still we are way richer than the majority of people around us. Those contradicting feelings are ever present during our bus travel through western Africa.

by Karolina Kazlauskaite, student at DNS2016

We are students from the Necessary Teacher Training College, travelling for four months by bus through North – West Africa.  We are trying to stay away from the touristic approach and are willing to get to know better the countries we are passing by. We make a real effort to meet the people.

It’s not a surprise that environment and living conditions in the African countries are completely different from the European standards. It is changing from country to country and every new landscape raises tens of new questions, but some of them keep popping out and follow you wherever you go.

Who gets to define poverty?

Poverty is the concept that raises many controversial discussions in our bus and elsewhere. Who is poor? What is poverty? Is poverty in global North different from the one in global South? Do people realise that they are poor? If so, why do not they change that?  Is poverty only an economical measure or is it more ideological, mental? Who has a right to define, who is poor? Whose responsibility is it to take care of the poor: local government, foreign funds or people’s themselves? Why don’t rich change the things? Is poverty an obstacle for people to be happy?

A slap in the face

These are the questions that constantly move back and forth our bus. Especially after visiting Guinea-Bissau, one of the poorest countries in the world, according to multiple statistics.

We get slapped straight in the face by when we encounter the stark reality of people’s life conditions in Mauritania, where the poorest and the richest live side by side.

Poor students?

Also, we have to deal with the uncomfortable fact,  we are living on probably the lowest budget in our lifetimes and still, we are way richer than the majority of people around us. Those contradicting feelings are ever present during our bus travel through western Africa.

These and similar experiences made all these questions circulate in my mind. I started to look for the answers. I do not think there could be the one and only answer to this question: why poor are poor? After talking with many locals from the countries we have travelled, visiting ministries, talking with businessmen, digging deeper into the history of the continent and some research about the global policies of modern times, I must say that it is a huge network of complex and interrelated reasons that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

My quest for answers will not stop because I get off the bus in Europe and continue with my life ans studies…