She opened the door for me, bundled up in an old scarf, hat, and gloves. Inside, it was colder than outside. A woman of about 80, alone at home. A modest house, just like her. It’s easy to see that her retirement doesn’t allow her to live in comfort.
Illustrative photo (internet photo of an 80-year-old French woman)
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I spent three hours repairing his heating system: changing valves, restarting an old boiler, battling rust and damp. All the while trying to keep smiling, to joke a little… because the atmosphere was filled with silence and solitude.
When I finished, she looked at me with a small smile and said, “Blessed is a plumber who always keeps smiling…” I asked her for 50 euros. I had spent 43, but it didn’t matter. She handed me a 20 note and added, embarrassed, “I’ll give you the rest when I get my pension…”
I left with a weight in my stomach. Not because of the money, no. But because it shouldn’t exist. It was the 9th of the month… and she doesn’t get her pension until the end of the month. With the holidays in between, she’ll have to wait even longer… To heat her home. To live.
This isn’t a story of pity. It’s a story of anger.
This isn’t a story of pity. It’s a story of anger. Against a system that abandons those who kept it going. Against a world where basic necessities become luxuries, and where a farm pension doesn’t even cover two weeks of life.
And yet, she said to me: “Sir… I don’t dare give them to you now. I’ll put them in the mailbox when I have the money…”
I’m not rich. I don’t want to be. But I know that real poverty isn’t about lacking money. It’s about living in a country that forgets its own.
“Real poverty isn’t about lacking money. It’s about living in a country that forgets its own.“
HAKIZIMANA MAURICE . Follow me on : Whatsapp, Facebook,Twitter and Instagram