I awoke to the crowing of a rooster. I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window into the light pink sky of dawn. I untangled myself from the mosquito net that had wrapped me up into a cocoon over a night of tossing and turning and tiptoed my way through an obstacle course of bags, sleeping bags and sleeping teammates. When I finally got out onto the front porch, I went about brushing my teeth as I sat and watched the sun slowly climb higher up into the sky, just as I had the day before and the day before that. And just as I did the days before, I thought to myself, "I could get used to this." Even with the sore muscles that we go to bed with every night and the simple meals that we eat. PBJ sandwiches for breakfast day after day.
Then another few of those days past, in which I learned that what I thought I could get used to was the VIP lifestyle in Nkwazi, Zambia. Sure it was nothing compared to what normal life is for us, but it was more than what anyone in the community would dream of for another 10, 20 years.
I tried to imagine what it would REALLY be like to live there, without the bottled water and the pre-paid money that magically got us food on the table 3 times a day for 2 full weeks with us practically doing squat most of the time (yeah we built houses, but we weren't THAT productive and with our skill levels, we'd lose out in the real labour market for sure.) Then the more I thought about it, I realised that we might have problems with even merely surviving.
A lot of things that we consider essential are useless here, and we are no longer taught what IS important because hey, we have better things to do with our time. In a place where there's no electricity, a degree in Computer Science gets you nothing, because while people might have heard about computers, they serve no real purpose as far as they're concerned. You might as well run around all day trying to clear the village of ants. Some women here sell handicrafts in the markets, which I clearly never developed a talent for. Men work in the mines or some heavy labour job, and for that, half the women in the village would be fitter than I am for such a job, if they are to hire a woman at all. I suppose I could teach English, but not knowing the local language would give me a hard time getting around. Plus the government wasn't hiring teachers. In fact not knowing the language would disqualify me for a lot of jobs. Anyway, you get the point.
On top of lacking a useful skill that would earn me some money, I don't know how to skin a chicken (if I ever get my hands on one with my $0 income), I can't tell the difference between a harmful snake from a harmless one, I'm not exactly knowledgable in the agricultural department... and it goes on. Assuming that I don't have antibiotics or malaria pills and whatnot, since we work so hard on keeping our food and environment clean back home, I'm sure I'd catch something minor and die from it before I even learn a skill that may earn me a chicken.
Clearly living in Nkwazi, living the LIFE in Nkwazi, is not an option for me. At least for now. But realising that shed a different light on my life. I've become dependent on things that I assume will always be there. Should, actually, be there, or else you phone up Shawcable and yell at them for an internet connection failure, or you storm into the office of UBC Housing and Conferences and demand that the toilet that doesn't flush properly on your floor be fixed by the end of the day, or you curse whoever is in charge of your electric lines when the power goes out because dammit! I have to study and candle light isn't enough! And my notes are in my laptop!
It doesn't mean that I'll go take a handicraft lesson or two, pack up my bags and leave the "spoiled developed world life" and try to make a living in some forgotten village in the middle of nowhere. People progress, and somehow different parts of the world did at a different pace. They have their life there, which they know how to live, and I have mine here, with my computer on my lap, which I am familiar with. I wouldn't survive in their world, but if they were to be transplanted to our world, the skills that kept them alive would prove to be insufficient here. Though we live on the same blue Earth, we're in differen tworlds, and at this moment, this is where I am, and that's where they are.