I believe this picture was taken in Jakarta where the slums live in poverty. i can infer this from the fact that the background of this picture is a dumping ground, there are shelters build next to the dumping ground and the shelters were not well-built out of concretes. I believe that the children in this picture followed their grandmother to the ground nearby their house to play as they are flying a kite and eating chips while the youngest among the four was on a hunt for toys.

On the left hand side of the picture, it shows three older boys smiling at a much younger boy who had a distorted Barbie in his hand. In spite of the fact that the Barbie looks distorted, they were overwhelmed at the newly found toys that they could play with other than flying a kite which could not be done indoors. This shows that even though they are living in poverty, the world they revealed was a surprisingly peaceful and happy one.

On the left side of the picture shows several cattle finding food in the dumping ground. I believe that the people in the picture owns those cattle and the fact that they brought the cattle to a dumping ground instead of fields shows how poor their living conditions are. The cattle are skinny due to the lack of nutrients as they are no green grasses for them to feed on. The cattle are reared for food, but due the fact that it does not have enough food, it will take a longer time for them to grow and then to be slaughtered or they could slaughter it before it become fatter but it would mean lesser food obtain. This shows that the living standard there is not good and starvation and famine can occur anytime in the year due to shortage of food.

The background of this picture shows shelters of the slums. They were built of wooden boards attached together in a form of house beside the dumping ground. According to my contextual knowledge, they built their shelters there as they could not afford to pay for the rent of the house which is usually high, thus only the rich get to live in houses built out of concretes while the poor built their shelters at unoccupied places. The environment is bad due to the fact that it is located near or even on the dumping ground. The daily necessities such as water there were polluted, therefore is not suitable for consumption as it might spread diseases. Even though the dumping ground gives out odor and is not suitable to live on, the slums still lives there as they are too poor to afford a proper place to life in.

This picture shows us that Singaporeans are very fortunate to be able to go to school and have a good environment to live in and we should not take it for granted. We should help those who are less fortunate as they are also human and they also deserve to have what we have too. The government of that country should start taking action to improve the living standards there instead of neglecting it as it would not solve any problems.

-Wee Jing Ying (29)