take a good look around

its great to be back (from cambodia, if you don't already know)
besides not being able to sleep because i keep seeing poor children in rags running around in my head laughing, smiling, being happy.
i'm not sure which makes me feel worse, knowing they have close to nothing or that they are happier than i've been in a long time.

i guess there is truth truth in the saying poor little rich girl/kid/boy whatever.

its so sad really and terribly cliche. terribly terribly cliche.

here it comes.

we really take so many things for granted.
we really are so terribly blessed its unfair.

its so unfair.

i had boy come up to me in the russian market, he probably isn't much older than 6.
he offers to shine my shoes.
i say no.
he gets chased away by the shop keeper i was buying birkinstocks from.
he comes back.
i look away.
he refuses to budge.
i let him shine my shoes.

there something about having a tiny human being kneeling in front of you,
shining shoes that you know he'll never be able to afford
that tore my heart in two.

i gave him like all of my riel that probably didn't amount to 2 singapore dollars.
he looked at me like a child who just got a bicycle on christmas day.

like i said, its so unfair.


rewind to housebuilding.

18 uwcsea students, all of whom to some degree are spoilt rich brats, hammering away at the wood plank floor of the galvanized iron-walled houses they are building.

there's something about this scene that works for me.

"its not about you, its about them"

it takes 7 days of being in a country just 2 hours away by plane to realise the world really isn't just singapore.

sure,

we know somewhere at the back of our minds that there are people not as privileged as we are.

we know that some people live on less than US $1 a day

we go to church and the pastor talks about compassion for your fellow human beings

i go home and get upset because my mother tells me to clean out my room.

there's something seriously wrong with this picture.