[Re]: Poverty

But life in Biko seemed to me, in some non-material ways, to be much "wealthier" than the life I experience in Oakland for example. The village had a much stronger sense of shared community and connection to the natural world, as far as I could tell, than our big urban jungles do. It may sound corny, but I think there are forms of wealth which we in the "civilized" world tend to ignore or devalue, much to our own detriment. -Mr. Sutherland

I believe that since we are considered a first world country, our idea of poverty itself is much different than that of second and third-world countries. I mean, we have so many liberties and rights that we take for granted all too often, whereas people in other parts of the world are risking their lives for, hoping that future generations would have these "privileges" that we already posses. Just from the fact that we have everything so readily available to us, it has made our generation a very lazy one as a result. The term "first world problems" is often used to describe this phenomenon, frustrations and complaints are only experienced by privileged individuals in wealthy countries. It is typically used as a tongue-in-cheek comedic device to make light of trivial inconveniences. Things like "My phone charger is downstairs and I'm too lazy to get it." and "I click on my Facebook notifications, but they aren't going away." are common complaints. 


I believe that the reason that communities such as those in Biko are so banded together is due to the fact that they don't have much materialistically. They have a stronger sense of community because they are actually forced to interact with one other, instead we live through a wall of social networking and texting, creating a totaly different persona for ourselves and losing touch with our community and surroundings. In some ways, people like those in Biko are richer than us in my opinion. Such as their culture, and the way they treat each other are probably held in higher regards compared to what we experience in present day America. So really, get to know your neighbors, be involved with your community, pick up a physical book, and go play outside and exercise.