Quote:
Originally Posted by Normal
You haven’t a clue about “third world countries “. I’ve lived in a few and we are far and away superior to that status. In fact we are far and away better than any European nation. Just because vaccine mandates have been removed, or that parent’s can now file for an exemptions, doesn’t mean we will ever be that third world country.
It must be fun telling other people what they have to do with their bodies .
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GREAT post. I ran it by my wife, who was born and raised in a third-world country in SE Asia (Thailand), and she got quite a chuckle out of it. She also agrees 100%. People who have not experienced exactly what that means (and I don't mean as a tourist) simply have no clue.
Some of the things she talks about beggar the imagination: like when she got meningitis as a very young girl and her father carried her over ten miles to the only hospital in the area as there was no transportation available. About having no indoor plumbing--or outdoor plumbing: when the urge struck you headed out to the rice paddies and did your business there. About being essentially abandoned as a young child after her mother divorced her father and having to live with her aunt and grandmother who were dirt-poor even by the standards of that time and place. About getting up at 3:00 AM and having to grind rice into flour on a stone mill so her aunt and grandmother could cook the desserts for sale that was the family's only source of income. About getting a job tying re-bar on a construction project in the middle of summer--age 13--so she could afford a school uniform. About being too poor to have a lunch to take to school so she'd "study" in the library while the other kids ate. About the time both her grandmother and her aunt got sick and she had to stay home to take care of them--at six years old. About many other things.
I've spent extended time there with my in-laws and have seen firsthand where she was raised, as well as how a lot of people live particularly in Isaan (NE Thailand) where a primary source of protein are insects. Things are better now, but not all that much for some people. You are totally right. Being poor in America actually reflects a life style that would be the lap of luxury in a great many third-world countries.