(A woman at 3pm) "I haven't eaten since 10. I am starving!"

Since I have been back, some things in USA culture have really driven home what privileged lives we have here in the developed world. For example, you can walk into a grocery store and choose between 20 different types of toilet paper: There is the extra soft, the double layered, the triple layered, the extra-soft double-layered, the spring scented, the package of 12 rolls of extra-soft double-layered, the 24 roll package of extra-long triple-layered ultra-soft baby-scented toilet paper, etc. Have you ever thought about what your toilet paper choices represent?


There is only one kind of toilet paper in the countries I visited in East Africa (outside of Nairobi that is). It is usually colored green or pink and it is definitely not 'extra-soft.' However, it costs so much money compared to the income in rural areas of East Africa that most people can't afford it. They either use newspaper, leaves or nothing at all.

A Ugandan pit latrine (one of the best and cleanest on the trip). At night the walls, floor and ceiling are moving with cockroaches. (I actually developed a game called, 'cockroach herding' where you use the beam from you flashlight to move the cockroaches away from the hole at night). It is such a privilege to have your waste taken away/flushed practically smell-free from the comfort of your home in several gallons of drinkable water.

Last week I went to visit my family in California including my grandmother who became ill while I was in Africa. As our plane was taxing into the gate around 3pm, a woman got out her cell phone and called her husband. During the conversation she said, "I haven't eaten since 10 this morning. I am starving!" To be honest, I think that I have said things like this hundreds of times. However, after being back in the states for only a couple of weeks, I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. Americans don't know what "starving" is. If lunch being a couple hours late is "starving" then an entire day without food for an American would mean certain death.

I think that these children in the Agoro IDP camp know what the word "starving" means. I was told that children in the camps do not complain even if they go several days without food.

I just counted. I have 7 pairs of shoes. Seven pairs! (A pair of chaco sandals, a pair of running/exercise shoes, a pair of black walking shoes, another pair of sandals, a pair of fancy high-heel interview shoes, a pair of flip flops and a pair of boots). Why? Sometime in the previous years I decided that I really needed each pair of those shoes. Right now I am trying to unpack all my boxes of stuff that I packed up before I left for Africa. I have been overwhelmed by how much stuff I have. What is it that allows us to have such a privileged life and such vast economic opportunities?