Here are some of the very stark realities I have been exposed to this year:
In Indonesia the government dictates what people can say and do. Among the thousands of motorbikes zooming past extravagant government buildings and lavish temples, on roads littered with plastic and produce stands, are people hurrying to and from a job they do not love to make a limited income. Great aspirations are reduced to learning English and finding a career in hospitality.
In the Philippines the bright skyline can barely be seen from miles away through the dense fog of pollution and mountains of trash piled almost as high in neighboring communities. These people boast to live like Americans in a city full of advertisements and shopping malls that you could spend days in after navigating your way through a variety of smells and the honking horns of congested freeways outside.
In Thailand, elderly people get up before the cock crows to carry their food to an overheated, unsanitary market in the hopes of selling enough to afford the roof over their families head. Young women sell their bodies to customers from around the world because it is the quickest way for them to “earn” almost enough to feed their likely fatherless children. They are told their worth by a society that could care less about them and they believe it.
In Cambodia, people without limbs try to sell you books about the war that cost them their livelihood. There is a lack of progress that makes you feel as if you are living in a twilight zone, where refrigerators are a luxury and hot dogs are all the rave. You can visit the bridge where Angelina Jolie made a film about the Khmer Rouge and buy iconic red scarves after visiting mass grave sites from the execution of anyone with the mind or the money to threaten the former dictator.
In Vietnam, the people are told what they can and cannot believe and what they are expected to contribute constantly. As a courtesy, tourists are reminded not to walk through the fields due to land mines and hazardous remnants of warfare. You can ride the bus for 6.000 dong (about 26 cents) from the upscale spas and posh cafes of district 1 all the way to the orphans and auto shops in district 12.
In Bosnia, the buildings are littered with bullet holes and ruins barely intact stand next to recently renovated hotels and grand shopping centers. The blend of old and new is an attraction in and of itself…you can walk through tunnels that families hurried through when the city was under siege and stand on the edge of a barricade once lined with firearms. Refugees sleep outside the train station in the hope of receiving a blanket and some bread. Most of them have been beaten by authorities, lost their passports at the boarder, and spent every dime they have to get as far as they have.
The small nation of Kosova is still referred to in their former oppressor’s tongue. Different religious groups, patriotic foreigners, and resources hungry nations still cling to the idea that this country should belong to them. The populace has fresh memories of war, scars from vaccinations, and family members that they have yet to be reunited with. Young in their independence, they are eager to catch up to the rest of Europe and earn respect on a global scale.
Today we live in the aftermath of 20th century bloodbaths and the stakes have anything but lowered. My generation got to learn about the never-ending story that is the Cold War. I grew up watching big dogs fight in the little dog’s backyard and declare it an issue of national security.
While we grow increasingly comfortable in our first world bubble, the disparities between “us” and “them” grow starker. Simultaneously, entire groups of people dismiss altogether the reality that the world’s problems affect us, and will eventually be our problems.
