List 41 - Fifteen pieces of perspective . . .

This week's list is a bit different.  I hope it works.  My intent isn't to make anyone angry or to start a dialogue over the pros and cons with the USA's work on poverty.

A thought just keeps coming up in my head this week, and I can't help but say this . . .

The 'disaster' on the cruise ship this week sounded awful.  It sounded hot and miserable and gross and stinky.  It would be a great disappointment to finance and look forward to a wonderful trip, only to have it end up as a slowly sinking failure.  That's just it, though.  It would be disappointing.

And then the folks from the trip could go back to their 'real lives' and eat a big, juicy hamburger, take an extra long hot shower, adjust the air to their liking and tell some awesome vacation gone wrong stories. There is no doubt that it was a miserable experience.  I'm glad for them that it is over.

Actually, after some of what I saw in Nicaragua, I'm glad for them - period.  The travelers aboard the cruise ship were dealt a shoddy hand.  They had bad luck.  They were forced to endure conditions that most of us don't ever see.  I'm sorry it happened; but oh, how I wish one of them would use their fifteen minutes of fame to underscore the reality that millions of folks live in conditions far worse than the ill-fated cruise ship and they do so every day of their lives.  I wish just one of them would acknowledge that the situation was a complete mess, but that they are fortunate not to live that way all of the time.

I met people who live in a dump; and though they aren't the majority of the fine folks of Nicaragua, their story and their realities haunt me still.  They live in the midst of a mess.  They don't have running water.  There are no bathrooms.  They don't have enough food and no boat comes in with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  The babies didn't choose to be born into that, and I hope I never forget what I saw.

So, today, just a few photos that show people - often smiling, happy people - who were born into something different than you and I know.  Today, a list of photos . . . to help us all remember that sometimes our yucky, smelly, hot, dirty, unlucky, ill-fated disasters might not be the 'worst thing that can happen.'  I hope everybody has a great weekend.   If I have my own cruise ship gone bad story, I hope I'll remember to keep it all in perspective.

(I promise I have stories that aren't about the dump . . . but some memories just scream out to be told first.)