It isn't fair!

You know I use that line with my children sometimes - Life isn't always fair.  In those cases, I generally think it is something of 'little' significance.  But the more I know of life there are lots of really unfair things - many that bring tears to my eyes.  I have some friends who are participating in Dresscember.  I am grateful for the work they are doing educating us about some of the injustices in the world around human-trafficking.

A neighbor girl cooks food on the street corner. Others might
go around carrying it in bowls on their heads to find
customers in other streets or places of gathering. 

But you know those things that you wish you could go back to innocence and not knowing?  Due to recent events, we have found more out about the teenage and younger girls who go around selling food in our town.  And this is one that makes me cry.

One of my first impressionable memories when we first arrived was from the time I was walking to get our groceries at local stores. I often got there before a store opened for the afternoon.  Once as I was waiting outside, a teenage girl sold some food to a guard for the store.  He dropped her coin on the ground in the sand.  It was humiliating to me that someone would treat another person like that.  But the girl simply picked up the coin and walked on like it was normal.

We have found it is much worse for these girls than I first observed.  They are going around unchaperoned and thus they are very vulnerable.  In addition, if they don't sell enough of the cooked food they have to sell, then they have to resort to selling themselves because their family expects them to bring money home for that day.  Who could do that to these girls?  It makes my heart break.

-- La Maestra