#inspiration #travel — I was watching a travel show on TV called Departures last night which I catch from time to time. It’s about these young Canadians who decided to travel the world especially to non-touristy places and they have been on the road for three years.
It’s a good show and last night they featured Indonesia. One of the hosts remarked that people in Jakarta and in fact, the majority of the world, live in third world developing countries with less than idea or safe living conditions. However, he added that despite the hardships, the people including the children, still manage to smile. This gave me inspiration.
They showed that in addition to going to school, these two little Indonesian kids who were about 8 to 10, had to work in dirty water and collect iron ore from the old ships that were rotting away. The entire family works on this so that they could sell the iron for some money.
It was a bit sad to watch since this is not an environment that kids should be in, especially if the water is dirty. They should be having fun playing after school like most kids do in developed countries. But this is just a way of life in Indonesia and many other third world developing countries.
The fact that they manage to keep going on despite the difficulties there, really inspires me. If they can do what they do with such little that they have, the rest of us in developed countries who have a lot more should not complain about our own lives.
I’ve seen similar conditions elsewhere too including my time in Cuba recently where I travelled not only to Havana but through some small rural villages where I saw less than perfect living conditions as well. If you missed my video footage from Havana, catch it at Motivational WebTV Episode From Havana Cuba.
Next time I have something to complain about here in Canada, I’ll think about the folks in other places for inspiration.
