London- 8:17am- Jan 20, 2012
As I sit somewhere in the center of the London-Heathrow airport, I have mixed feelings about what I see in the context of where I’m going. The floors are squeaky clean, the top-line stores are flashy with pictures of alluring models making you want whatever they’re selling, people from all over the world are stuck in this limbo… some rushing bright eyed to their first flight, many around me are waiting for their second or third flight, tired and ready to leave this place where a British woman’s voice makes announcements every 3-5 minutes (at least it’s with a British accent).
Paul’s trying to kill pigs in Angry Birds and is not as successful as hoped… “Those lucky bastards.”
Social class differences are glaring during international travel. Our British Airways flight (which was not very good, I want KLM (Delta) next time) had three classes of seats. The first class was complete with chairs that lay down to a horizontal position, with thicker blankets, and remote-controlled individual screens. The second class had fewer chairs squeezed across the width of the plane, and lots of leg room. And then our third class, where seats are small, leg room is minimal, but each person still has an individual screen (albeit not working most of the flight). While I walk through the Philadelphia and London airports, I see luxurious, exclusive ‘galleries’ where wealthy frequent travelers have big comfy chairs and assumedly escape from the British woman’s voice making announcements.
I am walking around with a very heavy book bag which instantly irritates me (maybe it’s the two hours of sleep I’ve gotten when my body thinks it’s 3:30am), when almost everyone else is easily walking with a roller carry-on gliding behind them. I think, why didn’t I use my roller carry-on? Oh, that’s right, because a book bag makes more sense for where we are going… rural Tanzania. It will be a long time until I am surrounded by this kind of atmosphere again: the clean, sanitized nature of everything, the posh advertisements, the wealth.
Why does this bother me? This environment is much like where I grew up in the United States. It bothers me because I am surrounded by things telling me I could be richer, and I should want to be. If I had more money, I could buy that purse the beautiful model is trying to sell. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I am going to a place where people can only dream of the luxuries I am afforded. I fly on international flights with televisions for everyone. I am able to fly home for six weeks and do close to nothing while I visit family and friends. I have a loving husband who has been awesome enough to share a position with me in rural Tanzania for a year. I’m typing this blog post on a relatively new netbook, while Paul plays Angry Birds on my newly acquired iPod Touch.
Will I always be this Debbie-Downer now that I realize how wealthy I am along with all of my friends and family? It’s better to have this understanding of relative wealth and poverty than to go through life never seeing different parts of the world where people live drastically different lives. The next seven months will be spent serving out the rest of our one year contract with Amizade. Most of that time will be in Karagwe, Tanzania. This time will be challenging, but it’s the difficult periods of life that lead to the most personal growth. And, it must be good for the soul to get away from this life of wealth, and live more simply for a while. I look forward to this next semester, and hope to integrate into our local community and learn some things that will help me keep the simple life perspective even after my time ends in Karagwe. Here we go!
Update: We landed in Uganda around 10pm last night and arrived at Backpackers Hostel at midnight. We hope to continue our journey to Karagwe today, if not tomorrow.
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