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What do you think when you see this picture?
Do you see a hut in Africa, maybe filled with people
struggling to survive? A hut that they can build because that is all they can
afford?
When I look at this picture, do you know what I see? I see a
hut, two huts, out of several, because with the intense equatorial heat, a hut
is the coolest thing they can build, and Africans are smart, why would
they
build a house when a hut is going to keep them cool the best?
Their huts have nothing to do with their financial status.
What about this one? Do you see
an impoverished woman
who struggles to cook enough food for
Her family?
Do you know what I see? I see a strong, proud woman who
cares after her family, who works hard and takes care of the land. So often
pictures like these are used to draw an emotional response from Americans who
may feel sorry for the poor women who work so hard, living in huts in the
African bush. This is her home, and she wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
Living in villages is more than a standard of living, it is a lifestyle, and
that’s important to know.
And this one, these children, dirty and without any shoes…
Do you wonder to yourself if they have ever owned a pair of shoes? If they have
“real” toys to play with, or if their parents were able to give them
hokey-pokey Elmo for Christmas and what that means if they didn’t get it? Do
you wonder what their childhood will be like when they don’t get to play with
“real” toys?
Do you know what I see here? I see two active little boys
who wear school uniforms and shoes during the day, but after school change into
play clothes and throw off the shoes to be able to run and play better. They
own shoes, but just like kids in the U.S., it’s so much more fun to run around
barefoot. They have the best toys because they can do so many things with them,
each toy has so many different uses, it’s even better than store bought toys
that break in 5 minutes.
Rural homestays was only a week, but it taught me so much.
Sure, compared to a typical American family, they don’t have a lot. They don’t
have boxes of stuff in the attic, a storage unit down the street, shoes for
every day of the month and enough clothes so that they don’t have to do laundry
for weeks, but step back for a minute…. Do we actually need those things to
live? What’s wrong with living with one pair of shoes, with just a few clothes
for the week? Our culture tells us it’s not okay, it’s not acceptable and to
strive for more things. Our consumerist mindset tells us what we have is not
enough; we need more, bigger, better.
Because we believe that to be true, we think everyone in the
world should have that, or at least something close to it.
Sure, my family didn’t have running water, but we had a boor
hole just down the road and it wasn’t a problem to fetch water morning and
night. Good exercise right?
My family had community. My family had love and time to
spend with one another. My family had fresh vegetables, milk straight from the
cow and a beautiful compound that was swept daily.
My family worked hard and reaped the benefits from that.
The American dream doesn’t apply here, and that’s okay. It’s
not America.
