A Third World Eye Opened for a New World Kind of Girl

By Kelly LeTard

I am disgusted with myself. This is not uncommon after a good thrust of reality. I am here in the beautiful third world country of Indonesia on vacation. Today, my concerns were:

1- Will I get to play tennis?
2- Will I get a nap?
3- Will I get a batik robe?

I assure you that all of my concerns were put to rest and all of the answers to the questions were yes. The robe that I bought was beautiful. It is authentic batik, and after a lot of bartering it cost me 65,000 rupiah. Here is where the reality steps in, I just learned that that is about four times the amount of money that my server makes in a day. I know that things in Bali are inexpensive, but I am quite sure that that is not enough for a family to live off of. The current exchange rate is 9,500 rupiah to each American dollar. Is it possible to live off of $2 a day when you have two kids? I doubt that it is, even in Indonesia.

This is a country that has recently been the butt of terrorism. There have several bombs that killed people. This has frightened off tourists. Tourism is a huge industry in Indonesia; there are many people here that are not making any money. After a bomb went off in Bali tourism dropped. It is just now that Australians, who are the #1 vacationers in Bali, have started to come back. This is a country that is already really poor and now they are not making any money.

My heart went out to this lady. She is amazing. Everyday, we come into the hotel restaurant to eat. She remembers exactly what my Grandfather is going to eat. She smiles; she jokes. She is great with English. My heart suck when I heard that she did not know what she was going to do. It was her last day at the restaurant and she was not sure when she would get to come back to work. Me being the eternal optimist that I am told her that at least she was going to get to spend some more time with her children. She smiled, but I know that she was not reassured about her future. I was disgusted with myself. I am concerning myself with things like batik robes and tennis, when there is someone worried about feeding their children. The strength that this woman has amazes me. Although my grandfather was planning on tipping her anyway, I am sure that he tipped her more after hearing her story.

The tip that she got from my grandfather will keep her family fed for a while, but what she is going to do beyond that I do not know. I am not sure that she knows. It upsets me that the money that we gave her is going to help us sleep about night, but what about all of the other people who are suffering in Bali?

This is an amazing place with a very interesting culture filled with people that smile and smile and smile. I just hope that if I were in the same position as many of these people that I met on my trip that I would have the strength to smile as much as they do, and be as friendly as they are. It was a good learning experience and very good exposure. I am so happy that I went and got to see all that I saw, even if it is not all good.