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We are spoiled beyond belief.
- Nov 10, 2008 at 10:46 AM
- By
- Comments (58) Total Views (1702) Everyone can see this journal post.
It seems nearly every time I watch Sesame Street these days, Grover visits Africa and they show the clip of the wretchedly poor children attending school. It breaks my heart every single time, and I think long and hard about how easy we have it here in our country and how badly we take our conveniences for granted.
The clip shows a woman with her baby strapped to her back, waking her young daughter up for school. The child has slept on the floor of a hut, and washes her feet from a bucket and then cleans her teeth with her finger from the same bucket. Her mother hands her lunch, a small amount of food wrapped in paper. Then the child walks barefoot to school, where dozens and dozens of other children are all crammed into one room and taught by one teacher. They learn to write using chalk and small pieces of blackboard. They are eager to learn.
The children do not have expensive, safety approved playground equipment. They jump en masse for fun. They wear worn clothing and few, if any, have shoes. They don't have nutritionist-approved meals in the school cafeteria, or computers in the library, or teacher aides or overhead projectors or textbooks or school budgets. They don't have the luxury of being finicky about their food.
I wish Americans would stop being such spoiled bitches about everything. Whine, bitch, moan and complain. We are so oblivious to how other people live their daily lives elsewhere in the world. We are petty and selfish and self-absorbed. We are luckier than we'll ever know.
A child watching that clip on Sesame Street may not realize the depth of poverty it portrays, but an adult should, and it should make an impact. One Christian phrase that always has resounded for me is that "if not but by the Grace of God, that would be me." Apply that sentiment to your own personal spiritualism or philosophy and it will go a long way to refreshing your compassion for those less fortunate.
Comments:
Word.
great post! We live in a very arrogant country. More people need to travel abroad rather than stand still.
Beautifully written.
You are so right. I was watching 60 min last night and they were talking about old computers and televisions being shipped to Hong Kong, which is against USA and China law, for people over there to tear them down and take some of the metals out of them that could be sold for money. It was horrible what those people were living in, the water is so contaminated that their water has to be shipped in, but they were washing their clothes in it and it was muddy and nasty.
They asked one guy, who had cuts on his hands and who had said that he can feel his throat and lungs burning when he is taking the computers apart, why he continued to do it and he said because the money was good, $8.00 a day. I thought wow, only $8.00 dollars a day and we complain. I felt very guilty about all the complaining that I do.
As always Joye, very eloquently put.
I'll never forget this footage I had seen of a mother and her 5 young children. She took a stale loaf of bread and proceeded to make crumbs of it and the kids licked their fingers and picked up the crumbs one at a time. That was their meal for the day. I never take anything for granted, this post reminds me to be thankful and to teach my kids that being spoiled means we can give more....
Powerful journal here, Joye. Simply amazing.
Good post Joye.
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you are always so insightful... I love your journal posts