A courageous widow

    Even though Madagascar is a country whose population is particularly young, there is a wee bit more elderly around than fingers on one hand. The youths, graduates or not, are usually struggling to find a job or any kind of lucrative activity, but, besides, many elderly or “zokiolona” still have to support themselves on their own. 

    Old hags begging in expectation of something to purchase minimal food is a daily scene through the streets of the capital city. Some of them, widows all for most, are, nevertheless, doing their best possible to earn their daily bread through a small activity. 

Let us assess a particular widow nicknamed “Rabozy”, living in the districts of 67 ha. She is an old woman living on her own in a house of hers, a house that the rain season usually floods with surrounding sewers’ waters. Since the rain season is reaching its heart now; she is being deprived of bed to lay on (completely over flooded by dirty water), so she has consequently installed a chair on it as a makeshift bed. Humidity causes her a nasty flu, and her feet hurt. 

   On a daily basis, she is making a living by collecting plastic bags (those generally used to wrap grocery stores’ goods up, for example when purchasing a kilogram of sugar) from her neighbors or from people who know her in the surroundings. These plastic bags are being washed, folded and sold to public markets’ vegetable traders. She also collects plastic bottles to be sold. In the same way, she can make small bags for women, could she be proposed the deal to do so; otherwise, she is collecting leather left-overs from padding plants to make some bags to be sold. 

    She has no permanent price for what she sells, provided the returns are covering her efforts to gather and make all her things up. There are probably many more widows in her situation all around, but she is the single one who could be found. How many of us can dare to claim a mere share of this widow’s courage!!!