I know I mentioned in another post that in Kintampo, Ghana we are famous…but did I also mention we are rich?...Filthy rich. Now, mind you, in the states I’m one of the poorest people I know, but here I might as well be Bill Gates! I’m an American, which means I live the easy life and swim in pools of gold coins ala the old cartoon Ducktales.
Yesterday while I was working on screening neonates in the maternity ward one of the researchers who worked in the laboratory beside the hospital spent a half an hour telling me how lucky I was to be from the United States. Compared to Ghana, we live like kings, and he wanted to make sure I knew that…and that I thought of him and brought him back with me. A lot of people talk longingly of the American Dream…the one my family lives right now…
It’s hard, because I’m not wealthy…but when you see the poverty here it is devastating. It holds people down, it makes those with any intelligence and wealth want to flee. And can you blame them? Dirty, unkempt dust roads, decaying buildings, rampant disease…things in Kintampo can look pretty bleak. The poverty rate is 30 – 40%, and poverty here means living with electricity and running water, little sanitation, scrambling for food, living off the earth.
Yet, the people are happy…the material concerns we have about needing things don’t seem to be as important to them…then why do I feel so guilty? Why when they live and laugh and dance? I’ve been told that it’s best not to ask why in Africa…so maybe the better question is how can I be happy with the little I have?...and how will this experience change me?
No comments:
Post a Comment