We take a lot for granted. I know that. You know that. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve said so many times I almost feel self-conscious saying it at all. Most of you reading this can expect to have access to clean, safe drinking water anywhere you go, for the rest of your life, but you would be hard pressed to hear a young person today give thanks for that out loud. But at no point in my life did I realize this phenomenon with more gravity than upon my return from my first four months in a severely impoverished country, having witnessed what Stephen Lewis calls the \u201cbrutal assault on the human condition\u201d. Those of you who have had similar experiences will know the feeling well.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019m not talking about taking long life for granted, or the democratic process, or access to material luxuries. I\u2019m thinking of things that are much more banal. This blog is a place to share ideas and stories, and I\u2019d like to share one with you.<\/p>\n
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Traveling on a shabby bus from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam last year, I distinctly remember a Batswana woman en route to Gaborone from Uganda to see her family (easily a 5 day trip over African roads). Six hours out of Dar, nearing the end of the second day of her trip, she realized she had lost her passport, probably somewhere just south of the Kenyan border crossing at Namanga, six hours behind us. She went into hysterics. The bus driver pulled over and she alighted at a small patch of dust with a sleepy chip-stand. I watched her pacing, in tears, as the bus immediately pulled away, and I could almost narrate her thoughts: \u201cThe sun is about to set. I\u2019m in the middle of nowhere, with no passport, no money and very few possessions. There is no one I know here and my Swahili is poor.\u201d All of this happened in less than a minute.<\/p>\n
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She would never find her passport if she turned around. It would be dark by the time she made it back to the border \u2014 if she made it back \u2014 and the closest Batswana embassy was hours in any direction. There\u2019s no way she could afford to hang around Dar waiting for a new passport (which takes much longer to process there than it does here). But she couldn\u2019t leave the country without it. I felt sick as I thought of all these realities.<\/p>\n
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I think about that woman a lot, what happened to her that night, and what I would do in such a circumstance. She had one shot to get where she was going. There\u2019s no contingency plan, no room for error. Once you witness an experience like that, most people\u2019s complaints at home seem to have the volume turned way down.<\/p>\n
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I don\u2019t mean to suggest that Canadians don\u2019t have problems. What I\u2019m asking for is not disdain for Western life, nor any token of gratefulness for \u201chow lucky we are\u201d. I don\u2019t need you to get mad about the baby seals. I\u2019m asking for consciousness.<\/p>\n
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Complaining is silly. Either act or forget. When I feel angry because things don\u2019t go my way, I turn on a tap \u2014 any tap, anywhere \u2014 and I think about all that that means.<\/p>\n
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