Unpleasant surprises will emerge everywhere, and life isn't precisely what the advertising brochures give us an impression of. Do we really have guts enough to see how the reality is? Or is it better to be protected by our own lack of knowledge and empathy to understand other people's difficult terms for life?
Will we fell crushed down to the earth if we saw all the world's misery? Isn't it better to live our own good life without searching for places that can cause us worries? Are you living in the real world? Do you dare to see how it really is?
Statistic isn't enough to wake us up
Recently United Nations published their Human Development Report 2000 in Geneva (see the web site http://www.undp.org/hdro/.
The report has been conducted based on an independent expert-team's investigation about human's conditions for life.
Some facts mentioned below, should give us something to think about:
- 100 million children live on the street
- 18 million people die each year regarding diseases.
- Daily die 30 000 children of diseases which can easy be cured.
- Since 1990`s 50 million people have become refugees and forced to leave their homes.
- There are more than 10 million refugees and 5 million internally displaces people
- In the last 10 years 5 million people have been killed in civil wars.
- Illiterate among adults can easily be reduced down to half in the coming 30 years if we really take it seriously.
United Nations (UN) vision is: "Human rights and human development share a common vision and a common purposeto secure, for every human being, freedom, well-being and dignity".
But as we can understand from the mentioned global facts, the life isn't fair. Is this just statistic? Yes, it is for people who don't travel and see much. But for people who likes travelling, and are willing to face the truth whatever they see, they cannot avoid to be stroked by a "human touch".
Even tribes in the deepest jungles around the world are threatened by extinction because of several kinds of diseases brought by foreigners. For example, both Indians in the Amazon and pygmies in Central Africa are infected by Aids. Aboriginals in Australia.
They have not been treated well by white settlers and visitors, and their lifes today are not easy. They deserve an better future. They are very nice and have an unique culture. They have also an incredible good understanding of the nature, what amaze the most Scientifics.
Photo: Aborigines in Australia.
Travelling: adventure and explorations, or just exploitation. Indigenous people most places around the world have their problems caused by greedy colonists and visitors. First of all they need respect from others.
Photo: Children in South America are full of hope for the future.
Conscious about how to help other people. Exploiting or exploring?
Based on own experiences from travelling and explorations, I think we can make this world to a better place to live. Explorations can give us valuable knowledge, which we can use, not only for ourselves, but also for helping others.
How can we understand what is going on if we don't show up there ourselves? Of course I am aware of that not all places are possible to visit due to different reasons.
Have you ever reflected about how you impact the people you visit far away from your home, and how they consider you? Is your visit only based on your premises, or do you really give something back to these people that can be useful for them?
Travelling and explorations open up our eyes
These thoughts leads me to a person who travelled to Nepal for one reason, to reach the highest Mountain in the world, Mount Everest, and as we all know he made it.
In 1953 Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, Sherpa of India become the first mountaineer's to reach the summit, climbing via the Southeast ridge. Oxygen apparatus were used. But it didn't end with that. A new miracle started and it changed his entire life. Since he conquered the mountain, he has until today been busy helping the inhabitants in Nepal with building temples, hospitals, schools and bridges. The natives learn now about the world around them. At the same time they have been given better opportunities to stimulate their own culture. What Hillary achieved together with the natives is incredible.
This was really an experience of a "human touch". Experience of a human touch Behind the statistic there are many terrifying human destinies. For one year ago I read about two young African boys who died in small pit beside the wheels in a Sabena plane. They had sneaked on board in a West African country as stowaways and froze to death in the high air. When the poor boys where found, their schoolbooks with marks had been pressed until their bodies. By hand the boys had written an appeal in excellent France to the Western Europe, pledging to give them a chance.
They really want to tell us how clever they where and that they had worked hard on school. In the country they lived, there were no future, just war, starving, misery and evilness. Sentimentality? No, it is reality. Explorations don't always make us feel good.
The world is full of injustice. What can we do? First of all show the people we visit respect. Let it be on their premises. If we appreciate and take care of what we have, the world will still be an interesting and exciting place to explore in the future. Further more we can give locals useful gifts, write and publish information about their existential conditions for life, and give money through aid organisations, which intends to help them. Based on this, I am convinced that we all find it more meaningful when we visit people around the world.
Stein Morten Lund, 5 August 2000
Additional information
Link to United Nations (UN): http://www.un.org/
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