Money, Money, Money

We made a couple of stops at schools on our trip.  They were quite the eye-opening experience: lots of kids packed into rudimentary buildings with rudimentary services, lacking proper supplies, dressed in knock-off T-shirts and pants, sometimes with no shoes.  I don't know what was more surprising - the situation they found themselves in or the fact that they seemed so terribly happy.  For a guy who can find the bad in every situation it really freaks me out when I'm around someone who is making the best of what I consider an intolerable situation.  That being said I do understand that what I saw wasn't the whole picture - still, I was traveling with a group of people who threw a fit if the soup was too spicy so seeing happy children in a sweltering, unadorned classroom was very uplifting.

One of the schools we visited was set up by a private organization to educate kids from poor rural areas, kids living hand-to-mouth, kids who weren't going to go to school because they couldn't afford the cost or had no ability to even get to the school - there were no big, yellow school buses with blinking red signs making the rounds.  The primary goal of this school is to teach them how to speak English.  There are plenty of jobs available because of the booming tourist industry but even the housekeeping staff is expected to be able to communicate with the tourists on at least a rudimentary level. 

I made it my mission on this trip to try to search out whoever was cleaning my room and give them at least a small tip, money that isn't going to matter a bit in my life but is probably helpful to them.  The reaction I got was always gratitude and usually what appeared to be surprise.

Again, I say, the more tightly I hold on to something the more control it has over me and the less I enjoy what I'm holding onto.  One of the more interesting statistics I've come across is that the more money someone has the less of a percentage they donate even though the absolute amount is often greater.

We pulled up to this school and got off the bus.  The kids were lined up in five or six rows, according to height, with the littlest ones in front.  I swear they held a tighter formation than the plebes at West Point.  I understood that this was, in some part, a show - we were the rich American tourists and we had money that they wanted, that they needed.  Still, I sensed a lot of pride coming from both the children and the teachers.  One of the youngest kids, a little girl, stood at the head of one of the rows.  As the school principal was explaining its purpose we could see her face start to slowly crumple.  Her eyes closed and she burst into tears, crying silently.  Her teacher came over and gently escorted her into an adjacent play area where she perked right up.  She couldn't have been more than four or five years old - hard to tell because poor nutrition leaves a lot of people much smaller than they would be in the west - and no doubt living away from her mom and dad during the school week.

After the presentation the kids said their ABCs and sang a song, then broke up to practice their English with the tourists.  I talked to one of the teachers for a while and her English wasn't that impressive.  I could tell that she didn't always grasp the answers that I gave to her questions, even though I tried to speak slowly and keep my words as simple as possible.

I chipped in.  Damn right I did.