This photo doesn’t really have anything to do with the post, but who doesn’t like a pic of some cute kids?!
I’m guessing a vast majority of Westerners who live in the majority world have hit this issue, I know it’s something that came up a lot when I lived in Kenya, and stayed in the back of my mind while we lived in Australia, and now it’s back, with a vengeance, on a whole different level now that we’ve added kids to the mix. Or maybe I’m just strange and most people don’t think about it at all.
What is it?
Well……there’s no easy way to say it, so I’ll just say it.
Affluence. Wealth. And the responsible, reasonable stewardship of said wealth.
I had an interesting experience a couple of weeks ago, that has weighed on my mind a lot since then. And really, to many, it’s probably not that big a deal, something that can be brushed off, justified, dealt with, but it’s stuck with me.
We are about to move house, we are moving into a place that belonged to teammates of ours who have left the country, and before them there was another AIM family living there. So along with the history and furnishings, come two lovely ladies who have been employed by those 2 families for a number of years. They are hardworking, wonderful ladies who rely on their pay to support their families. I had to have a very difficult conversation with them a couple of weeks ago, and basically tell them that we aren’t in a position to employ them both because we can’t afford their wages. It was not an easy conversation. It was not a pleasant conversation. It potentially has massive ramifications for one of the ladies as they lose full-time employment and a fair wage in a place where work and fair wages are not easy to find.
Fast forward 24 hours and we had parent-teacher conferences with the kid’s teachers and received their report cards. They did so well, we were so proud of them. They have not had an easy 8 months (leaving all that is familiar is not an easy thing to do for anyone, but is so much harder for kids who don’t really understand why, or what it means, and really are just coming along for the ride), and they exceeded our expectations for how they would do at school. I remember report-card dinner out when I was a kid, it made me feel so special, so we decided we wanted to celebrate the kids and their achievement and really everything about them ‘cos they’ve done so well, by going out for dinner. We weren’t going to go anywhere fancy – just one of the cheapest places we’ve found that’s close to us, where we like the food.
In order to do that though, I had to cut short my language lesson and tell my language helper that I could only do an hour lesson because we were taking the kids out for dinner. As I said those words it suddenly hit me – here I am, telling someone who is an invaluable help, who has become a friend, who I pay very little in the grand scheme of things, that I am going to take my kids out for dinner, and while I didn’t specify where we were going, I realized we were going out to spend about the equivalent of what I would pay her for 5 language lessons. And last night I’d told those ladies that we can’t afford to pay you both. But tonight I’m going to spend half of your wages. On just one meal.
And suddenly I’m thinking, and constantly think it now, how do we do this? How do we live our lives, make it as smooth as possible for the kids, and us, but live responsibly? Sensibly? As good stewards of what we have? I’ll be honest, financially it’s not always easy and there has been month left at the end of the money, but then if I start to compare with locals – we live in a mansion, we drive a huge car. Golly, we HAVE a car. We buy $11 boxes of cereal for our kids occasionally so that life feels a little bit ‘normal’ for them. We buy apples, and pay 60c each for them because ‘Do we have to have bananas all the time?’ We eat meat at least 4 times a week in a place where meat is a special occasion meal for most.
So how DO we do this? Do we take the frame of mind that plenty of locals live like us, live better than us, so it’s ok? Or we’re ‘rich foreigners’, it’s expected, so it’s ok? Do we give up those ‘luxuries’ that make life that little bit easier and a little more ‘normal’ so that we can live more like those who have less, far less, than us? Do we do nothing, stop thinking about it and just get on with it?
I don’t know that there is an easy answer, or an answer at all.
I guess the wrestling will continue.