Meditations.

Meditations.
music: josh groban - february song



While my schedule has been pretty much packed the whole of last week, my mind lived a life of its own amidst the activities. I don't think I've ever had so many pockets of reflections in awhile.

I haven't been scrambling to dictate all these churning thoughts, and after awhile, they kinda got tangled up into a web of disarray. It's gonna take quite a few posts and a lot of distraction-free thinking to really get the intangible thoughts out into words, but I will, for that's how I make sense of it all.

I was at the hairdresser's a few days ago, and while randomly flipping through a female magazine, I was drawn into a feature on Cambodia. Now, this wasn't a travelogue praising the ethereal beauty of Ang Kor Wat. In fact, the sacred ruins weren't mentioned at all in the entire 4-page article.

It was instead about a woman's venture into the slums of Cambodia; of her account of children living beside dumping grounds as large as six football fields combined; of how these children willingly exposed themselves to the risks and diseases working in garbage brought, just to get the "first and best catch" each day to make a measley 50 cents for 12 hours of work.

Midway through the first page, I found myself holding back tears.

The next page talked about child prostitution and trafficking, a topic I'd touched on in my speech presentation last semester. It talked of the rampancy of HIV, and how parents refused to let their children be taken to shelters, for these children could be used as rice bowls be it through begging or prostitution. It talked of how brothels would approach families with teenage daughters, proposing to buy their virginity. It talked about the fight for survival, and unlike most feel-good stories, there didn't seem to be even a hint of a rainbow at the end of this article.

I sat there in the salon chair, watching my hairdresser in the mirror. Here I was signing away my money - multiples of the 50 cents those children had to break their backs for; while right here in Southeast Asia, people were battling malnutrition, diseases and perhaps having their innocence brutally taken.

What was I doing? What are we all doing, in our fan-cooled comforts?

I came home and searched online for aid trips, but many turned out to be mission trips. It is against my belief that one has to be of a certain religion to lend a hend, so please, drop me a tag if you know of any non-religious help aids to Cambodia.

I talked to Justin Z. later about it, and I found his sentiments pretty interesting. He told me he had toyed with the idea of going on such trips before, but soon felt that the help one rendered was akin to building sandcastles along the shoreline. I can't argue that, for poverty really is widespread.

What then should one do, I asked. Sit under the palm trees and watch as others scramble to build sandcastles which will be washed away once the tide rises, or join the fools in the losing battle against nature?

And is this appalling chasm between the rich and the poor nature, or nurture?