Being in the Middle East , we receive lots and lots of TV brodadcasts. Today, I was watching an Iraqi TV station, and a number of these show poor families around the country. Some programs help , but other TV programs only focus on "showing the government" to push it to improve its performance.

Anyway, I got thinking while watching such families surving life at its worst. Not only they are poor but some of them face harder circumstances like : father killed or jailed, both parents dead and the kids living with very old grandmother, or such kind of cicumstances that make a hard life even harder.

One of the stories today was a bit interesting (for me anyway). It was a woman with her two sons (7 & 5 y.o) living in what looks like a home. She has built a room in that yard called a home, and put some kind of roof. The TV guy asked her from where she got the bricks and door. Her answer reminded me of (The Colony) when members dragged half a plane and utilized its wings and engines. The kids used to find a few bricks in the streets now and then, and they drag the bricks home. And one day they found a door , so they and their mother dragged it home. With that material she built the room.

They guy asked her what she wishes for. She said her wishes are too many to list. However one thing she likes to have is a few tiles to put on the dirt floor so she can spray with water (to cool it ) and then she can lay on it with out getting dirty. Also, she wished to have a tarp to put on the roof to stop the rain

He asked her about the rain and while she was telling a story about rain wetting their bed and few belongings, she giggled. He asked what was funny about that ??? She said that they have nothing left in life but to laugh at what happens.

She described what happens when it rains. They jump out of their beds, get together around their kerosene stove for warmth and homy feeling, making tea and waiting for the rain to stop. Meanwhile they "chat around the campfire" so to speak.

I don't know how to describe it but seems these poor folks have learnt how to deal with harsh life in a way we are still studying and experimenting with.

Its like that the world over. Our forebears had lives that rough on our frontiers (i.e. Kentucky, ca. 1774 or Pennsylvania ca. 1727 <mine>).

As poor as I am, I have a solid structure of a house and electricity & running water. I am very thankful for those things.

Let us be grateful for ourselves and open-handed to those not as fortunate.

A lot of the world lives in relative comfort. On the other hand, a lot of world lives in poverty and day to day live is purely survival. My SO has seen this first hand while doing NGO relief work in some of the most destitute and hellish 3rd world countries on the planet. Her experiences and stories of these places always serves to remind me to be so appreciative of how easy we have it in comparison. Related note, she is seriously thinking of going in November, back to Africa for 8-12 months with a NGO relief group. And I as much as I would also like to go for the experience, one of us has stay and pay the bills...unfortunately.

I am what maybe considered "middle class". Not rich and not poor either. There are times we have tough time watching such unfortuante people without being able to help.

In addition to donations now and then, my family and I try to squeeze every possible amount of reusable/recycleable "garbage" and direct it towards the less fortunate. For example, when the car batteries die , we collect them in the garage. And one day when we need some helping hand, I ask one of them to do the job and pay him, then give him an additional gift of 1 or 2 car dead batteries or a sack of 50-100 Pepsi cans that he can sell and use the extra money.

With all that we still feel helpless !!! We can only do that much in a world where the rich gets richer and the poor become poorer.

However, sitting with these folks sometimes teach us that you can live with very little, and that most of our comforts are self-justified waste. And I also learnt a very unfortunate lesson about us humans. We may even envy the less fortuante for whatever scraps of happiness or fortune they may have. Case in point, one day a guy was working for me cutting a tree in front of my house. An obese guy standing nearby said " Oh, look at that. I wish I have his lean healthy body" !!!!