kate hudson, save the children, and australian shiraz

i am currently lounging on an extremely comfy bed at the ritz carlton kapalua eating a volcano spiced (whatever the hell that means) chicken sandwhich with crispy onions and drinking a 2006 shiraz from southern australia. life is both plush and tastey. an hour ago i was on an elyptical machine in the same room in which kate hudsen was performing calestenics. my parents are at a wedding somewhere and i am sitting on my ass achieving absolutely nothing without a pinch of restlessness or guilt.


guiltless? but how, kalei, after your vast travels to some of the poorest nations in the country? don't you see begger children staring, wide-eyed and emploring, at you from your 11 dollar strawberry smoothie that you didn't really want as you lounged at the brand new pool that was designed to look exactly like the old pool?


how? because, despite how plush and fabulous sweating off chocolate lavender cookies 20 feet away from movie stars is, my day wasn't any better or worse than any of the days i had in africa.


life in africa isn't so hard when you're there. i mean, sure it is hard carrying 20 pounds of water on your head for a mile. but at the same time, college applications are just, if not more, daunting. in africa, people stress out about having enough food. in the west, people with eating disorders stress out more about eating food.

i'm not saying that i'm not grateful to be from such an amazingly privleged life. fuck, my life is awesome and i wouldn't want to change a single aspect of.

i mean that.


and maybe my experience in africa wasn't as shocking or heavy as it should have been because i realized while power-walking through the slums of accra that soon i would be back at the ritz, but honestly, poverty didn't shock me like it "should have" (according to some people).

life for people in africa go on just as life goes on for students at punahou. both worlds have things more challenging than the other and both worlds have advantages. what those save-the-children ads on lifetime doesn't show are those dirty, half-naked kids playing soccer in the street all day, every day. juxtapose that with an asian mother who forces her 7 year old kid to practice piano for 2 hours after coming home from primary school and before going off to tennis and tutoring that night.

life in africa is hard, but the people there don't nessisarily know any other way. does that vindicate injustices of the west that perpetuate this extreme poverty? does that mean that we don't have any responsibility to end the common offences on basic human rights? obviously not.

well, what does it mean? honestly, i have no idea.