your family update
You Backed them and things began to change
“My children’s education will change our life.”
I want to tell you about Uthayanithy. She’s 37 and living in a small village in Sri Lanka with her husband and three kids, a 14 year old girl, a 6 year old boy, and a little 2 year old girl.
Her husband works out in the paddy fields scaring elephants away from the crops, but he hurt his leg a while back so heavier work just isn’t possible anymore. He brings home about 4000 rupees a week and it honestly doesn’t stretch very far for a family of five.
When she said “I didn’t cook yesterday” it really said everything, and it’s not only the food. Every rainy season the roof leaks so badly that she picks up her little one and they go stay with relatives until it passes, because staying home just isn’t an option.
The family borrowed money at some point hoping to send her husband overseas for better work, but someone dishonest took the money and nothing came of it. They didn’t want to lose everything, so they went through a whole court case, and they still walked away with nothing, and ended up having to sell part of their land. That debt is still sitting over everything and with what they earn right now there’s just no way out of it.
When she was growing up, her appa (father) drank and there was a lot of fighting at home, her mum passed away and her dad left not long after. Her grandparents stepped in and raised her, taking on whatever work they could find just to keep her going, and she’s carried that weight quietly ever since.
On the weeks when work dries up she buys food on credit from the shop down the road and she is always worrying whether she can repay what she borrowed. If she doesn’t, she has no way to get food for her children the next week.
The only thing that keep her going, I guess like us all, is her kids.