We have it sooooo easy.

Mozambique 2011

Boy every once in a while we need a good wake up call. Not that we don’t know what’s happening in the rest of the world but it’s easy to pass it all to second plan when we have our everyday worries. How can it be? How can we all live under so different circumstances? How is that fair?

You see it everyday… in the news, in the papers, but being here, in loco, it’s when you really see it. When you really get how lucky you are and how much you have. Those little things that you take for granted…

These people make it with so little… and they don’t complain. They work hard, they do what they have to do. What I like the most is that they look happy. They are extremely gentle, polite and very sweet. The moms are incredible tender with the kids, no matter how many or how old they are. I also like how some things don’t change. The kids still love to play and ask for computers when you question them what they’d like for Christmas. The teenage girls still fight for the pretty pink short shots and cute tank tops. The moms still ask for a minute so they can put themselves together and look nice for the picture.

Mozambique 2011

Then of course there’s the rest… When you see that you don’t need a mansion, just a house that doesn’t leak or rain in. That you don’t need a spa, just a bathroom with an actual toilet and shower. That you don’t need a chef, just a kitchen with a stove and some food. And when you remember that you used to complain about your pay check and you know now a widow mother of 3 living with 75€/month… Or when you see how much of a difference €10 could make in the monthly budget of these families… It’s hard. We really need to put it into perspective.

Mozambique 2011

This is not meant to make you feel guilty (even though I have to confess I do), it is the way it is and you can’t feel guilty for what you have, you just have to try to find ways to help the people with more needs. Ways to give back.

There’s so much we can learn from them. How to be grateful, how to enjoy life no matter what.

We will get lost in our problems. No matter how insignificant they may seem against world poverty. And that’s all right, because the truth is that’s our reality and that’s what affect us directly. I just want to try to make sure that I don’t forget this other world. I know that even though we wish we could save them all, we can’t. So I just want to make sure that I stay focus so that I’m able to do my part too.