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For over 33 weeks, That Awkward Moment has been running, bringing life experiences into writing in a fictional way right on the Steem Blockchain. Certainly, there is more to Blockchain Technology than mere investments and earnings, nobody knows what mystery lies in the nook and crannies of these Universe, you only know what you have seen or told if you reside there, but we have seen and experience the evils and travails of some of these places we live in. Read and enjoy another episode in this series.

"A VISIT TO THE CRADLE OF POVERTY"

Life is never fair, at least not to everybody.

Some had never known bitterness, sorrow or poverty in their lives, while some had always had dose upon dose every single day of their lives. I have experienced just some dose of it, and so is many of us reading this, but I have never seen such extreme poverty and lifestyle as I experienced in the creeks located in my city. I and my team were there to do some Steem Cooperate Social Responsibilities powered by Steemt.

Makoko is the name of the place, a community floating on water with over 300,000 inhabitants all living above the murky and dark waters of the Lagoon. I was born in the city of Lagos but never seen or heard of a place like that until a month ago when I started my research pending our visit to the community.

If you have lived on solid ground, a hard surface all your life; then you have no idea what living poor might be. Living on the surface of Rivers, Lake doesn't mean poverty; but lack of basic amenities and living at the mercy of terrible diseases with nowhere else to go make it an extreme poverty. Living directly above your wastes(urines, feces) and feeding and sleeping there, where your only means of transportation is Boat(local Canoe) and you have to paddle your way through the dark murky waters and debris of the creek before getting to your destination which is just "Shanties" built with planks of woods and suspended on woods that could be swept away any time when there is heavy Rainfall.

Spending just hours in this slum made me have a rethink about life, a single meal a day with a nice and warm bed to sleep in without fear of water level rising and sweeping your belongings away is something to be super grateful for.

The people in this floating community are mostly fishermen, fisherwomen, "fisherkids", you will be shocked to see a 5 years old kid manning a boat and fishing at the same time rowing the canoe. These souls live at the risk of water-borne diseases, the Black Murky water where all the wastes are dumped serves as the source of food(fishes, crabs etc).

In my hours of visit, I tried locating their source of consumable water which comes from a pipe that runs endlessly like an oil pipeline, we got tired looking for the source, but it was clear the whole community depends on this same water which only God knows where it came from. Imagine if anything happens to the water source, over 300,000 lives thrown into despair!

Another thing that creeps me out is how over 250 pupils fit in a tiny two story-building wooden structure that is semi-afloat and partly on the man-made sand filled ground?

Since the floating school collapsed, students were forced to cram the "sister" school just to get a basic education of which many of these kids might not proceed to high schools. 250 out of 300,000 inhabitants is relatively too small, the chances of survivals of these kids are low even though the community chief claimed otherwise.

Moral

With the little, you possess, be thankful. With the tiny bits you have, give the needy, giving is the part of our rent to stay on Earth. There are so many evil and disasters in the World and poverty is number one of this travails!

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FOLLOW-UPVOTE-RESTEEM AND MAYBE DROP A SUPPORTING OR CONTRARY COMMENT.....It's your friendly Neighbor @oluwoleolaide for Steem-Lagos-Nigeria-Africa-World!

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