Life Comes at you and from there it is all about the choices we make, how we deal with those choices and how we act and react to the people and things around us. My goal: Happiness. I surround myself with happy people when I can. And if by chance I bring some happiness to others along the way it just goes to show; It Is What It Is

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Vacation or Eye Opener?

I returned yesterday from a week vacation in the Caribbean islands.  Gordon, Carol, Renee and I have been planning this trip for well over nine months and it came to fruition the last week in February.  This was a combined birthday present for Gordon and Renee, both of whom just turned or will be 50 within the next or last 6 months!  Anyway, they are my bestest friends, and travelling with them is way more than a guided tour through the tourist locations of the world.  I expected and did see off the beaten track places and did things that won't soon be forgotten.  However that is not the purpose of this blog today.  If you would like to catch up on the fun stuff and what we spent hours and hours laughing about, look for Gordon's blog - called Skeptophilia, and read his account of two little islands.

I want to talk about being a spoiled American.  I have spent my life, if not in the lap of luxury, at least comfortable in my own part of it.  I have lived in nice places, done fun things, owned cars, taken vacations.  I have a house that I own which most of the time is comfortable, clothes on my body of my choosing, and food on the table that is both healthy and tastes good.  All that cannot be said of many in this world - and I was brought face to face with that reality on this trip.

I grew up on Long Island and my mother had a lust for the city so we went there often.  Sometimes we drove in, sometimes we took the train.  I have seen the homeless in the stations and the pan handlers on the streets. But nothing prepared me for the poorness of this tiny two island nation, nor the attitudes of the people living there.

For the most part the people that we came in contact with were average TT's, middle class in their standards and who looked to the viewer like happy people.  The people we talked to from business and restaurant owners to cab drivers and shop owners all were extremely nice and we enjoyed our contacts with them.

However there is way more there than the average tourist sees.  We were driving through a small town looking for a post office when we drove off a main street to see what was to be seen.  A man ran up to our car.  Thinking he needed help, or could help us find the post office, we rolled down our window to speak with him.  He grabbed Gordon's arm and begged us for some money to help him eat for the day.  "Only 20 dollars please, please I have no food or money to eat, please."  This man had no shoes on and was running down the street (I could not walk out to the garbage bin barefoot due to how rough the streets were).  Also, understand, that 20TT dollars is little more than $3 American.  And this man was begging for $3 so he could eat.  We had been clearly told not to give anything to people on the street and this man would not take our gentle but firm "We are sorry, but we have nothing for you".  We eventually had to drive away with the man still trying to reach in the window.  How can you not have feelings after that?

That was not the only time we were approached by someone asking for us to help them out.  Another time a local shop keeper yelled at the man asking us for money.  He told us she was simply greedy and wanted our money for herself, but she shooed him away.

We also saw a man bathing in water that any one of us would not set a toe in, much less bathe our entire bodies in or put our face in, but he was and he did.  We saw a man being stoned by some teenagers.  In both these cases our cab driver who was a decent fellow said the man bathing and being stoned were crack heads.  He said they lived in the water front community where we saw the man bathing in the polluted water (He was making a joke, but it was hard to see the humor).  We saw these "houses" which looked smaller and not as well put together as the shed in my back yard.  We saw children, babies, playing naked in the streets there.  Houses made of corrugated aluminum as their walls and ceilings, and in many places, not just this ghetto, sheets hanging for doors.

In our guide book it stated that the average income for men is $12,400/year and $5500 for women (doing the same jobs).  There are many inequalities between the genders, but this was huge.  But even with that, it is inconceivable to imagine living on that little money!  We went to the supermarket for our 5 day stay on Tobago and spent $760TT on groceries - that is equivalent to ~ $125 American dollars.  That was for 5 days and we were going to eat some of our meals out.  That also did not include much in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables, or meat.  But yet the many Tobagan people seem to live on the money they make.

I am not even sure that everything I am writing makes sense.  I just know that on the whole this was a huge eye opening experience for me.  I am not sheltered, I have seen the news and met enough people to know, intellectually that the entire world does not live the way I was brought up, or even the way I live now.  I guess it has just never been in my face the way it was this past week.

I am thinking that I now need to take a good hard look at what I have, where I am, and where I am going and remember that I could be a lot worse off than I am.  It is all about perspective.  The phrase comes to mind that "The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything that they have!"  So I have taken a look at some of my goals and am looking at my life with a slightly different perspective.  "The richest persons are not the ones who have the most, but the ones who need the least".  My eyes have been opened.

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