josiahphilip.com

This week I had the opportunity to ride with the nursing students when they went to clinical. Phillip, our South African driver was driving us in the truck. He was going to drop me and another person, Stephanie, at the University so we could go to the library. On the way to the clinic I saw many impoverished neighborhoods and mud houses. It is so easy to forget as we are on our “Luxury South African Adventure” that there is extreme need and poverty just a short drive down the road.

We drove by a community of mud houses and Phillip asked if we had any communities like that in the States, our answer was not. Later I thought about that. People either are homeless or have some sort of an established place to live. There are no such things as “Informal Communities.” The thought occurred to me… Should there be informal communities? Should there be a place that the impoverished could call home even if it was a shack made of random materials? At least people in informal settlements have a shelter and a place to lay their heads, the homeless in America have nothing. Just something to think about.