A little perspective....

An interesting thing happened in my house the other day which I thought might be a good experience to share with all you folks in the good ole U.S. of A. Something to give you a little perspective as to the difference in the lifestyle down here versus what we are used to in the US.

My host mother is a seamstress and the other day she was ironing something that she had been working on, when by accident she dropped the iron on the floor. When she picked it back up and tried to use it again the outside of the iron got extremely hot and to the point she wasn´t able to use it anymore. They tried and tried to take it apart but unfortunately the only real way to get it apart was to break the plastic molding because it was all held together by one screw that was designed only to be tightened and you couldn´t take it out with a standard screwdriver. They came and talked to me to see if I maybe had this special screw driver and unfortunately I couldn´t help them as I had never seen a screw like this. We all then sat down on the bench in front of my house and the mother was practically in tears because the family could not afford the $15 or so to get a new one. This whole situation was very eye opening to me in the fact that even the smallest, simplest thing in their lives, like breaking the iron, can have a huge impact on their well being.

The good news is that I actually had a friend in the PC who had an old iron which she didn´t use. You could say that the family was very appreciative when we gave it to them.

So the next time you are in Lowes or Target, picking up all those seemingly meaningless items that may have little or no relevance to you, think of this story and how in many other places in the world people have to save for months, sometimes years to purchase something similar.