Survival News

Another year, another translation project. The long weekend has let me tackle the remains of an English to Spanish translation on survival tips for low-income, homeless/transient and underserved women in Massachusetts. It covers everything from food stamps (SNAP), utility bill assistance, job training, low-cost groceries, childcare, scholarships, housing assistance and education as well as a myriad of other public and private services available. It's a bit tedious at 20 pages (single-spaced) and full of income brackets, phone numbers and other statistics that have changed since last year, but the poem I'm posting below reminds me of why the information in this little newspaper is so important.


“What are we gonna eat tonight,
Mommy, will there be meat
and will there be bread?
Where will we sleep tonight,
Mommy, will there be a place to lay my head
Will we find heat tonight,
Mommy, or should we lie by
Uncle Pete’s old stove, instead?
Where are you going to be tonight,
Mommy, will you slip out in the darkness,
When I go to bed?”

The questions never end,
Your ethics may start to bend,
No matter how you pretend,
if this game IS LIFE,
Then where is the end?
I always thought I’d leave my mark,
But its engraved down at the park.
“What is the point of life?”, it asks
Is it for your kids, or some Godly tasks,
are there more weights for my sins,
Can I ever just start over again?
“Where we gonna sleep,
Mommy, the snow here’s getting’ so deep...”

Do we keep on walking,
til we’re blue,
or do we come back home,
To you?
A beating’s worth a thousand words,
...but the kids are cold...
And the only marks made,
I bear on my soul.
Kids asleep, I hear the door,
And then my face shoved
To the floor, and my pride and dreams
Get crushed some more.
...at least they’re not so cold, no more...

— Christina Schnetzer