Posted on 01/13/2015 3:43:21 PM PST by MNDude
Maybe this is a rant as much as it is a question, but I often find myself astonished by third (and 2nd) world culture from what I've seen of it.
Mexico: OK, this is probably more 2nd world than 3rd world. They do many things like USA. I have inlaws in Mexico, so I've spent some time there. One thing that seems to be consistent, whether you are visiting someone's home or a gas station, is that the toilets are rarely completely functional! So often they'll have a large bucket outside or in the bathroom that you have fill up with water and then use it to flush the toilet. WHY? It's pretty rare in USA that I've found a toilet that way. How is it that everyone's freaking toilet breaks...and there's never anyone there to fix it! If it is working, then there's a great chance that the toilet will be missing the toilet seat. Are they content to sit without a seat? Can't be poverty, because many of these homes I've seen like this are filled with X-box games.
India: Now we are down to 3rd world. I've spent several in India. I have often looked at awe in the lack of inefficiency and the way they do things.
Constructing a building: A person on the bottom fills a bucket with cement, who then hands it off to a person standing on a platform 6 feet above them, who then hands the bucket to a person on a platform 6 feet above them, who then hands it to a person above them (about 4 or 5 platforms high, I can't remember). Have they never heard of the pulley?
Sweeping the floor: I remember at my hotel, every morning about 5 people would come out to the plaza with a handful of thin sticks, that I guess kind of was supposed to resemble a broom. These workers began scratching their sticks back and forth on the ground swiftly, raising a little dust, but mostly just scratching the ground. A few hours later they were done. Have they never heard of a push broom?
Scrubbing the floor: Always on hands and knees with a scrubber. Never heard of the Mop?
I remember I asked an India guy at the hotel why they work this way. He replied "Oh, this way they can employ a lot more people!" I answered "Why don't they just hire them to fix the broken doors, the holes in the ground, and pick up the garbage lying around outside?"
Africa: Last, and YES LEAST. Is there such thing as 4th world? I was in Africa, and one day I was with a tour and we went to visit the tribe where the people worked. These people herded cattle. At nighttime, the corralled all the cows into the center of their village made of mud huts to keep them safe. Of course the cows pooped like crazy in the center of the village and the area was just swarming with flies! The kids had flies crawling all over their faces. I remember as a kid seeing a picture of a starving kid from Africa covered with flies. I asked my mom why they don't shoo away the flies and she answered "They are so hungry they can't even think of brushing away the flies." Nope...these kids weren't starving, they don't shoo away the flies because they don't. In any case, why does it never occur to these people to build a corral outside their village?
While I was in there, I visited a city with the population of probably 50,000, although it's really tough to tell. Guess what the people used for their bathroom. Modern plumbing? Nope. Port-a-Potty? Nope. Outhouse? Nope. Dig a hole and poop in it and cover it up? Nope. These guys had NO bathroom facilities and would just go out and poop in whatever area with no attempt to cover it. I mean seriously!! When I was in Jr. High I went on a camping trip with class, and first thing the teacher told us was what to do with the little shovel. Family of Laura Ingalls arrives by oxcart to Walnut grove in 1877, and first thing Charles builds is an outhouse! Have these people never heard of a hole before?
Anyhow, that's my rant. Anyone else had any experience in 3rd world countries? Any insights?
Interesting post, I guess we have all wondered the same thing, but with your travels and descriptions, you did a good job of posting our question.
Keeping poop out of the water supply is a big problem in many of these places. Seems like it has to be taught over and over.
simply a factor of IQ.
It’s an attitude problem.
That, and a culture that values blame-fixing over problem solving.
Slums are just the physical manifestation of something going on (or not going on) in people’s heads.
That too.
I travel Europe and have seen none of this kind of stuff you describe.
Hey, waaaiiit.
The problem with 3rd world countries is that they were not founded on Judeo-Christian values. This is important because our culture is unique in that we uphold honest and decent behavior as the key to mutual prosperity.
In every other culture prosperity is either a means to greater power or it is obtained by dishonest means.
This is part of why so many people in the world hate the USA is that they assume that we are wealthy because we *MUST* have stolen it. They just can’t conceive of some of the things we do - like when you see an old lady drop a $100 bill you pick it up and give it back to her. In most of the world you’d take it away from her and chide her for being so foolish with her money.
We have a Somali family who have left islam as neighbors and they marvel that Americans don’t have walls around their homes. They marvel that they were total strangers in the community and they were still invited to a BBQ. They marvel that they are measured by what they do for everyone else and not by what they do or do not have. It just doesn’t work that way where they are from.
People who have Christ in their hearts don’t need to worry about things like prosperity because prosperity is a natural side effect for a community of Christians.
FWIW, there's a principle in economics that's called something like the "efficiency of scarcity" or something like that. Basically, it says that in any economic system the scarcest resources will be used most efficiently, and the most plentiful resources will be used least efficiently.
I had someone explain it to me this way:
Which is the most productive grain farm: one in Western Europe, one in North America, or one in Africa?
The answer is that all three of them are, because it depends on how you measure productivity. The European farm is most productive in terms of yield per acre, because open land for farming is more scarce there than in the other two places. The North American farm is the most productive in terms of yield per unit of labor, since we don't have millions of people aspiring to pick grain by hand over here. And the African farm is the most productive in terms of yield per unit of energy, since they have plenty of low-skilled labor and plenty of land, but no cheap energy.
D.C. must have quadrillions of dollars!
/sarc
There's something to be said for that, but I think this is over-simplifying it. Neither China nor Japan was founded on Judaeo-Christian values, but for much of human history these were very modern societies. The same could be said about ancient Rome, which dominated the civilized world for hundreds of years but was far from Judaeo-Christian in any way.
A better indicator for modern development is that modern societies almost always have a written language. A society isn't going to advance very much when it can't even publish an instruction manual for something as simple as a horse-drawn cart. There's an enormous societal distinction between people who paint on cave walls and pass their knowledge down through folk tales, and people who write things down for posterity so all of their descendants can build on their prior knowledge.
The thing that always gets me is the the bathrooms in the third world. Why do they have to be so wet? The floor usually has at least a quarter inch of water, the walls are wet, the toilet is wet, even on top of the toilets are wet. Of course, the countertops are all flooded and the mirrors have water on them too. Every friggin thing has water on it. How does this happen? Who goes in the bathroom and sprays or throws water just absolutely everywhere?
What kind of mama teaches their kids to do this? “Now little Johnny listen to me, whenever you go in the bathroom, do your business and then when you’re all done, throw water on everything you see. And then people will respect and love you.”
The casual observer would conclude that they simply don’t care.
In Africa the counties were so poor they would rob sailors of their clothes but not their money.. They wouldn't take money because the police are brutal there.
When oppression is the daily dose of life....so goes the spirit to lift yourself up.....
It’s simple. Why bother do to do anything right when you can get yourself into America? (that is if you’re lucky.)
I certainly hope they don't view the toilet as a mini-shower!
"As usual, I am trying to present the grim facts of life. He doesn't understand that coffee tastes better if the latrines are dug downstream instead of upstream." - The Horse Soldiers
You have to think in terms of the food chain.
If they buried the poop, then the chickens could not eat it.
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