The Real Starvation Learn English through story level 2
in today’s world there are photographs
everywhere
web pages on the internet
magazines full of fashion and film stars
newspapers full of photos of wall and
sport
places and people from other lands
they say a picture is worth a thousand
words
and maybe it is
but what is the picture telling us
sometimes we only see what we want to
see
[Music]
[Music]
make a picture in your mind
a girl with thin cheeks
and tired eyes
her arms and legs are as thin as sticks
she is only skin and bone
clouds of dust circle above her head as
the food trucks drive away
their wheels leave marks on the dry
ground
and soon only the marks show that the
food trucks came to the village
and left
the sun is at its hottest
the african sky is unending and cruel
even the white men with cameras
busily taking photographs of the usual
fighting over the food are now getting
ready to leave
they pack away their cameras
jump into their cars
and drive quickly away to cool modern
hotels in a city miles away
they are photo journalists
one of them
sunburned and hot
dressed in a shirt and jeans kneels down
on the dusty ground to take some
photographs of the girl before he leaves
in the pocket of his shirt is a protein
bar
soft from the sun uneaten
untouched
forgotten
he doesn’t stop to think about the
uneaten bar in his pocket and the
starving girl
he is only one man
what can one man do in a world where
life is cruel
and governments cannot or will not help
their people
and who wants to stay in a place like
this
with its dirt
and its terrible smells
if they can drive away from it
the girl caught the photographer’s eye
she was in the middle of a group of boys
fighting just as strongly as they were
when the food trucks arrived
but she was pushed down and fell under
the boy’s feet
the boys stepped all over her
and when she could move again
the bags of rice were all gone
she stayed there
red eyed
moving her fingers slowly over the dusty
ground
the journalist takes his last photo
returns to america with his bag full of
films
one of his photographs of the girl sells
and is placed on the front cover of a
news magazine
you’ve caught the face of hunger in
africa
the news editor tells him
he wants to tell the editor that this
photograph is just one face
in one village
in a country full of hungry faces
but he does not say it
the photograph is good for him
more people admire his work and want to
buy his photographs for their magazines
and newspapers
the photograph is in most new stores by
the end of the month
even in those bookstores where people go
only to read the magazines and not to
buy
they look at the face of the african
girl
and quickly turn away to enjoy the rest
of their shopping trip
but the girl’s picture stays in their
minds
a teenager has just finished looking at
the clothes in vogue
an expensive fashion magazine
she sees the photograph under the
heading
starving africa
her parents are from africa
she herself was born and schooled in
america
watching american tv
american films
and has never traveled out of america
she is uncomfortable with photographs
like these
she remembers her classmates in school
who joke about starving africans
she isn’t african in that kind of way
but she isn’t truly american either
when she was younger
cinderella snow white
and all the other girls and princesses
in the disney films didn’t look like her
when she was older and became interested
in fashion
the models on the magazine covers didn’t
look like her either
then the magazines found out that africa
had beautiful women
a nigerian model is in the latest copy
of vogue
dressed in blue and thin
so thin
the teenager feels the fat at the top of
her legs
she wants to be thin like the model
she wants to wear jeans that i like a
second skin
she wants a photograph of herself with
cool unsmiling eyes like the nigerian
model
she is careful about what she eats
and if she eats too much
she puts her finger down her throat to
make herself sick
why does our world have people who
starve
and people who decide to starve
themselves
it doesn’t matter why
the hunger inside this teenager is real
so she stares at the girl in the
photograph
does not think about the dry
dusty hungry land behind her
and admires her cheekbones
[Music]
[Music]
you