Every day, I spend money carelessly: a dollar for a pack
of Reese’s, ten for trinkets at the Bookworm, twenty for a new shirt. I am
extremely fortunate not to have to worry about how much I need to save to feed
my family or where the next dollar will come from, if at all. As much as my
experiences volunteering in developing countries and experiencing poverty
first-hand have enlightened me and made me grateful for everything I have, it’s
still difficult to remember every day that each dollar in my wallet is a
luxury, especially in a place like Vail. But when I watched a documentary
called “Living on One Dollar”, I was once again exposed to the extreme poverty
that some people live in, and I was also reminded of my own privilege. The film
follows four young men, Zach, Ryan, Chris, and Sean, to Peña
Blanca, a rural village in Guatemala, where seven out of ten people live under
the poverty line. The men chronicle their experience as they face hunger,
illness, demanding physical labor, and the reality that sometimes there are no
easy choices.
The four men quickly befriend their neighbors, two of
whom are a boy named Chino and a man named Anthony. Chino is only twelve years
old and has dropped out of school to work and support his family. Anthony has a
cleaning job, so he can rely on a fixed income, but he still struggles
tremendously to support a household of eight. But even with this enormous
economic strain, Anthony’s generosity is made incredibly clear throughout the
film. Upon the arrival of the four foreigners, Anthony immediately invites them
into his home and cooks them Pulique, a traditional Guatemalan dish that is
only served on special occasions. I remember this kind of caring and
unselfishness from my trips. It always has a profound impact on me to see
someone in extreme poverty scrape together whatever they can to show compassion
to someone else. Furthermore, Anthony helped Chino’s family immensely, most
likely saving Chino’s mother’s life. Before the filming of this documentary,
Chino’s mother fell suddenly ill, but his family had no money to pay for
medicine. So Anthony lent them the money. Although medicine in Guatemala costs
a fraction of what it does in the United States, it is an astronomical cost to
families living below the poverty line there. Although Anthony has a more
stable income than Chino’s father, this loan still put a great amount of
pressure on him. I thought it was incredibly heartwarming to see that someone
with so little could sacrifice so much to help another person.
I doubt that I could survive in the conditions that these
people struggle through every day. Every moment is a game of chance – will I
find a job today? Will there be enough food for my children? Will I get injured
working, and not be able to earn a living? The mere weight of every
uncertainty, every added stress, would crush me, and yet these people live
through them each day. For me, what would be hardest about living in poverty is
the near certainty that I would be trapped in it forever. When Chris asked
Chino what he wanted to be when he grew up, he immediately said “I’m going to
be a farmer,” not because he wanted to (he actually wants to be a professional
soccer player), but because he knew that the opportunities to be something more
weren’t available to him. Rosa, a woman living in the village, is a living
representation of this tragic dilemma. She had to drop out of school in 6th
grade because her parents couldn’t afford to send her any more, and although
her dream is to become a nurse, she could never afford her studies. What would
I do if I had a dream like that – something so achievable in the US, but
seemingly impossible in a place like Peña Blanca? I have
always known that I’d be able to get an education somewhere, and the answer to
that question is unimaginable.
The culture of the Guatemalans in the documentary
reminded me of what I have seen in Nicaragua, Cambodia, and Tanzania. They
value family more than anything because, sometimes, family is all you have.
While I love my parents and my sister, I have never been as family-oriented as
some of the people I have met. But I also saw a value of community, and of
friendship, which is something I hold close to my heart. When Anthony was so
welcoming to Chris, Ryan, Sean, and Zach, I felt like we were similar, and the
only difference between us was that I have been blessed to live in a place like
Vail and he has not.
Though I have visited some of the poorest places in
Tanzania, Cambodia, and Nicaragua, I have never seen poverty at the level that
this documentary showed. When I go to Nepal, the reality that every family is
struggling to get by, day by day, will always be in the back of my mind, and
will fuel my drive to make as big of an impact as I possibly can.
