I have always been a very grateful person. This year my eyes have been opened up to a lot, and my world has become a larger place. And at this time of Thanksgiving, I simply can't give thanks. Here's why:
Growing up, my parents provided my siblings and I with the best they could. We didn't always have everything our friends had. I didn't get the latest and greatest designer fashions. I wore clothes handed down from my brother and neighbors. We didn't eat at fancy restaurants or go to expensive schools. Going to just McDonalds was a rare treat. In contrast to how many of my friends grew up, we didn't seem to have much. But we never went hungry. We always had a roof over our heads. We were given everything we needed to succeed in life. Since meeting adulthood, some would say my fortune hasn't necessarily grown. I have struggled for several years to pay the simplest of bills, never quite finding a steady job or income. I had to work two jobs during college and summers couldn't be spent traveling abroad. I have spent several anxious nights literally not knowing how I was going to financially survive the coming week. I have had to skip some meals here and there. I have had to stay in some pretty shady places, and at one point even spent some time living in my car. But I've gotten through it all with my health and ability to still make it by, even if it is month to month.
Sometimes we are fooled into thinking we have had a tough life.
The fact of the matter is this: While I sit here in sunny California with my office job and complain about the cold air conditioning, a child in Africa is wiping sweat from his eyes as he tries to get a full nights sleep. As I sit in traffic complaining about the terrible L.A. commute, a woman in Africa is living under a torn plastic tarp until she can raise enough funds to take a bus an hour away to get supplies to build a home. As I debate which place I want to eat tonight, teachers at a school in Africa are debating which children wont get lunch today because they have run out of food.
These are not just stories fed to me by the media. These are real people and real stories that I have seen and shared. I cannot ignore those faces after having looked into them face to face. While helping at one of the medical camps in Kenya this year, I was tasked with teaching a large group of children how to properly wash their hands. After our lesson, I was to hand out free bars of soap to each of the children. When the boxes of soap came out, chaos ensued. These children turned into wild animals climbing and screaching to get their soap. It was an intensly stressful situation and I left with a few bumps and bruises. Literally. They went crazy over a free bar of soap. A bar of soap. Try to wrap your head around that, because I was there and I couldn't even fully grasp it.
On a feeding program in Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, we visited a woman suffering from AIDS. She had 3 children. Two were at school. The youngest was just a baby. Her name was Faith. Faith was born with AIDS and desperately in need of help. Her mother somehow manages to remain positive and happy. There is no way in hell any of us would survive in these circumstances. I will never forget looking into little Faith's eyes. She starred back at me with eyes that seemed to physically pierce my soul. What does Faith have to cling onto?
I taught a class of children in Kenya between the ages of 4 and 7. One morning I arrived to the school to see the school grounds were covered with dozens of condom wrappers. As class started that morning, I was very anxious upon seeing that my students were gathered around some of the found condom wrappers. How would I explain this one? I knew they were going to ask me what it was. But I was wrong. "Teacher! Teacher! Look! Look! Condoms.. Condoms all over... Teacher! We have to throw them away!" I learned that day that not only could these small children recognize a condom by its wrapper, but also that they knew exactly what condoms were used for. This is their reality. Over the couple of months, my lessons included teaching these children about topics ranging from theft to domestic violence to alcoholism. These children are all under the age of 7.
This is our world.
What have I done to deserve more than those children in my class? What have I done to deserve more than little Faith? Why was I born into a life of luxury while people around the world have nothing? The answer is that I have done NOTHING to deserve this life. Nothing. Those children are just as worthy of life as I am. Yet the cruelty of life has left them in their world, while I soak up a world of luxury and ease.
This is a time of giving thanks. These experiences from Kenya logically would make me more grateful for all I have. However, the honest truth is that even thinking about counting my blessings makes me sick to my stomach. I can't focus on all I have while people in this world, just as deserving as I, are suffering by no fault of their own.
I cannot be grateful for that. I can't.
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