SPURspectives

A friend and her son just returned from a trip to Africa to visit her niece in the Peace Corps. The niece has spent the last two years in a very remote village in Zambia helping to build wells for drinking water. The village is so remote that the car my friend arrived in was the first automobile that most of the villagers had ever seen. Her son was the first white man that any of the children in the village had seen. He towered over them at six feet tall. The average height of the adults is 5’6” and the average life span is 36. The remainder of my friend’s stay was exciting, magical, and eye opening. A couple of wealthy Americans were seeing for the first time what it means to try to live to see tomorrow as a way of life — merely to exist as each person’s primary goal. My friend came back a changed person.

Before her trip to Africa we often talked at length about the businesses that her husband owns reflecting on the current state of the economy and our new dire straights. We would talk about her classroom work with inner city children and their struggles simply to make it to school, much less show up with lunch and finished homework. Now things are different. Now all she can see is how much we have and how much we waste. Where she once thought she had seen the worlds of those who have and those who have not, now she has really seen it, and she is changed.

It will be interesting to see where this goes from here. My friend has been back in the States for only a few days. But there she has a newfound quiet coupled with a very intense gaze. Something is going on in her head. She’s not a person to sit quietly and not get involved, but she’s lead a fairly safe life to this point. Now there’s a spark. Over the next few weeks I suspect the spark will become something more. How and what I don’t know. I just have a hunch.

We all have awakening moments. Some of us aren’t so fortunate to be able to travel abroad to find them. You don’t have to. You only need to open your eyes, open your heart and truly see what is going on around you. We tend to become numb to our surroundings not seeing or understanding what can and should be done. It’s easy to glide through life. I want to encourage you not to do that. Open your eyes and look around today. Somewhere near you is something that should change that would make the world a better place and you have the capacity to make it happen. Today’s the day. Look around with your eyes wide open and make something happen today. Then make plans for tomorrow. You’ll probably be here and you have the luxury to make plans.

Tags: Peace Corps