by Amber Lin

When my son was 10 months old, my husband and I toted him over to India so that he could meet his great-grandfather before it was too late. I knew that we couldn’t drink the water because we weren’t from there. I also knew that though my husband’s family was middle class, there was plenty of poverty there. I thought I knew what poverty was.

We made the very long flight (24 hours, oh my God) with our arms full and our eyelids near to dropping. In my tiredness, it was kind of a blur, but I remember the ride home well. We drove along these roads that were 8-lanes across. Like a highway but flat on the ground, with no shoulders or curbs. Instead, speeding cars weaved through the lanes, mingling with scooters and donkey-pulled carts and pedestrians in a whirlwind of dust. Every 1-inch swerve by another vehicle, or animal, took my breath away.

Then I looked to the side of the road, and there were people. Not pedestrians, not workers. Mothers hung clothes on string tied between trees. Children ran through the dirt, some missing a shirt or pants. Sheets were held up by rotten planks, more like something a kid would use as a fort than anything like a tent.

They lived there. They lived on pennies, lucky when they could buy enough food to feed everyone, unsurprised when they couldn’t. That day I learned that poverty doesn’t mean poor, it means starvation.

At my husband’s family house, we bought bottles of water from the corner store. Not the gallon bottles I was used to, but little bottles barely larger than a soda can. I could have gulped down 10 of them and not batted an eye, but there I dutifully sipped and remained thirsty. Even the cups there were smaller than my child’s sippy cups, a constant reminder that clean water does not flow freely.

What I didn’t realize, though, was that they can’t drink the water either. They boil water from the tap, store it in the fridge and then cook with it and drink it. I had thought we couldn’t drink the water because we weren’t from there, and thus weren’t exposed to all the same things, didn’t have the immunities, but it turns out no one is immune.

I couldn’t help but wonder about those kids who live beside the highway. I wondered where they got their water, and I doubted that their mothers had the luxury of boiling it first. Even if they did, it was probably a futile precaution considering they slept in the dirt and breathed exhaust all day, not to mention used the highway as their playground.

On that trip, I began to understand my husband better. He lives in awe of this place where we live, industrialized, modern America, that I have always taken for granted. But for all his knowledge, he doesn’t shake his head at me when I take my long, hot baths to unwind. He sets them up for me, brings me a glass of wine. I think there is some magic in that, to know the worst but believe in the best. I think the experience of helping those in need can make our own lives richer.

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Amber Lin’s debut novel, Giving It Up, will be released on June 19th, 2012 by Loose Id. Check out more about her at her website or on twitter (@authoramberlin)

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