Thursday, March 31, 2011
Reflections
I was taking my dog for a walk this afternoon and it reminded me of the Poisonwood Bible because they are living in nature-closer to nature than we could know. It was so serene. I loved it so much. It was quiet, and the sun felt amazing. However, after I dropped her back off at my house, I left for a couple of hours, and in that time she rolled around in a pile of dung-that's right. My curfew is normally 10:00 on school nights, and I got a call from my mom at about 9:15 telling me "get home now and bathe your dog." Angrily I grumbled...but eventually gave in. I came home and the dog REEKED! I'm not sure if that's how it's spelled, but she smelled TERRIBLE. So, giving her a bath, I was reminded of the people in the Congo. They don't have soap like we do here. I mean, I bathed my dog with Suave shampoo, and they don't even have that for themselves. We take so many things for granted here, it's embarrassing. Nobody realizes that there is another world out there: one that we choose not to see. We are exposed to things on the news, or maybe a commercial about some orphan way-the-heck away from here. But that doesn't mean that they don't exist. I talk about this a lot, but I went to the slums of Chihuahua, Mexico last summer, and it was scary. I mean, it's the place where they warn us about dropping to the ground if we hear guns-and even in the middle of the day! The people there lived in tiny, one-room houses with poor roofs. The houses they lived in were probably the size of my bedroom, no lie. And that's not even close to what it's really like in some places. Even though it was the slums, there are still worse places-and that's extremely hard for me to wrap my mind around.
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I'm not sure what happened, but I had this in paragraphs and they went away...hmmm???
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how changing your point of view can change your entire understanding of life on this planet. Sometimes it only takes visiting another place. You are very fortunate to travel and experience other "realities." (Oops, I know Ms K hates quotes!) Even if people were to travel to Flint or urban Detroit, their perspectives may change. It is crazy to think our dogs get better food and shelter here than many people do in third world countries.
ReplyDeleteIt is really weird to think of. I saw the same kind of thing when i went to San Fransisco a couple years ago. We got up really early to go to the airport and all of the homeless people were still sleeping in the doorways. One of the people we drove by had just been woken up by a person dumping water out of an old jug on him to get him to go away. I dont think those images will ever leave and they serve as a reminder to not take what I have for granted.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I love about Mission Trips--the images and stories stick with you.
ReplyDeleteI will never forget some of the stories I heard. Even though the kids I talked to were speaking in broken English and I was speaking in broken Spanish, the story was still understood.
It was so cool, there was one day I was talking to a kid named Irwin on the way to his school, and his eyes were HUGE when I told him about all of the snow we got here. He didn't believe it at first.