Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the huge gap between the wealthy and the poor. While it may be human nature to choose
ignorance when it comes to this reality, it's better character to reckon with it honestly.
Anyone can learn that half of the people on this planet are trying to live on $2 a day,
and a billion people are trying to live on $1 a day. You can read that the average lot in life
for women on this planet is to spend a good part of their waking hours every day walk-
ing for water and firewood. But when you travel to the developing world, you meet those
“statistics” face-to-face…and the problem becomes more real.
In San Salvador, I met Beatriz, a mother who lives in a cinderblock house with a cor-
rugated tin roof. From the scavenged two-by-four that holds up her roof, a single wire arcs
up to a power line that she tapped into to steal electricity for the bare bulb that lights her
world each night. She lives in a ravine the city considers “unfit for habitation.” She's there
not by choice, but because it's near her work and she can't afford bus fare to live beyond
walking distance to the place that pays $6 a day for her labor. Apart from her time at work,
she spends half the remaining hours of her day walking for water. Her husband is gone,
and she's raising two daughters. Beatriz is not unusual on this planet. In fact, among wo-
men, she's closer to the global norm than most women in the United States.
I went home from that trip and spent $5,000 to pay for my daughter Jackie's braces.
I had money left over for whitener. I noticed every kid in Jackie's class has a family that
can afford $5,000 for braces. This is not a guilt trip. I work hard and am part of a win-
ning economic system in a stable land that makes this possible. I love my daughter and
am proud to give her straight and white teeth.
But I have an appetite to understand Beatriz's world and the reality of structural
poverty. I know that for the price of two sets of braces ($10,000), a well could be dug so
that a thirsty village of women like Beatriz would not have to walk for water. They would
have far more time to spend with their children. I advocate within my world on Beatriz's
behalf, and enthusiastically support relief work in the developing world. This is not be-
cause I am a particularly good person…but because I have met Beatriz.
