If you could live without one of the following, which would it be?
a) Air conditioning
b) Running Water
c) Electricity
d) Refrigerator
e) Washing machine
f) Solid Walls
g) A Car
g) All of the Above
If you are in America, you probably don’t have to worry about this ever being a real question. But if you were in Nijgadh, Nepal… your answer would be g) All of the Above.
If you chose:
a) Air conditioning, you picked the answer that most people would pick. It is very true that you CAN live without air conditioning. But, in a country with a temperature average of over 100 degrees during the summer with what feels like 100% humidity, it’s hard to function even sitting in your own home. But instead of sitting around sulking (like I would do) these people work hard in their fields, taking care of their kids, cooking, building, and working in shops. I can’t imagine how they can handle the heat. I even see very old women walking down the street carrying huge baskets full of various things on their head… and I don’t even want to go upstairs and get my book because it’s too hot to move from the single fan that is blowing on me as I sit in this chair.
c) Electricity, you are brave and you should probably go on the World Race. 🙂 To me, this would be the hardest thing to go without simply because it powers the fans, and it provides light. In our village this month, the electricity is only turned on for about half of the day… off and on. Which means, it could go out at any minute and be turned off for hours. It’s not too bad during the day, but at night when the fans go off and it’s still in the upper 80’s to low 90’s.. it’s pretty difficult to sleep. When the lights are out, we rely on our head lamps. They are wonderful inventions.
d) Refrigerator, this may seem like an easy choice because you can still eat food that doesn’t need to be refrigerated, but drinks are so much better when they are cold on a hot day… and food will last longer if it is refrigerated. The family we are staying with has never owned a fridge. They just got one yesterday, and you should have seen their daughter jumping around for joy. It really makes me appreciate those things I have back at home.
e) Washing machine, you may pick this answer if you have never had to wash your clothes in a bucket. So far on the World Race, I have used a partial washing machine in Thailand (you have to manually do a lot of it), a bucket in Cambodia (the brownish water didn’t exactly clean them), an actual washing maching (but not dryer) in Australia, another partial washing machine in Malaysia, and a bucket in India. You just never know how great your washing machine is until you’ve manually washed your clothes and they are still dirty after. If you have a washing machine and a dryer… thank the Lord! 🙂
f) Solid Walls, this answer may not make sense to you… until you are caught in a monsoon rain in Nepal in the middle of the night, and you and all of your things get soaked because of the gaps in the wood, brick, and tin roof. Or, at 5am, you can here every single nail being pounded, every animal on the farm making their noises, and every word being said by the neighbors next door who are building something every morning. Or you wake up every night to the sound of the rats fighting in the rafters, or falling into the bucket that you have to take a shower from. Appreciate your walls people!
g) A Car, this one is pretty much self explanatory. Don’t get me wrong, motor bikes are awesome. This is what most people drive here in Asia. They get you from A to B. But if there are more than one person that needs to go, or if it’s raining… it can get complicated. If you have a car, you are blessed. End of story.
