Oprah

While at the gym today I caught a few minutes of Oprah. Knowing that it is replayed at 7pm I was sure to catch it tonight. Today's show was about Mothers around the world and the struggles they face to take care of their families. She interviewed a Mother in a small town in Alaska, where the Winter lasts 6 months and can get as cold as 100 below zero. Where they have two months of no sunlight every year. The woman is still living in the two room house she and her 10 family members were raised in.

Next was a story on a Mother in India, who works at a call center all night and lives in a one room aparment with her husband and son, whom she rarely sees. Then on to Africa-Darfur, Congo, Uganda. There we saw Mothers who survive in the worst conditions imaginable. Husbands and children killed in front of their eyes by the Janjaweed, themselves raped numerous times, and now living in refugee camps in the middle of nowhere. Another Mother in Congo has 10 children to raise on her own, being a porter who carries ridiculously heavy items for miles on her back up and down the hillside for under 50 cents a day. Only to come home to a hut to cook what she can to feed everyone.

There were uplifting stories like the one of a Minnesota Mother who founded the International Breast Milk Project, which ships pasteurized breast milk to babies dying of AIDS and malnutrition in Africa.

I found this show incredibly humbling. It's just unbelievable the conditions people face trying to survive in different parts of the world, just to keep themselves and their families alive. We all have heard stories of poor areas where people break their backs for a few cents a day, but to hear these stories from the people themselves was very moving and heartbreaking.

And here I am, sitting on my comfy couch, in my nice apartment, with a full belly of food, complaining that I'm tired from my (easy) office job.

Kinda makes you think that we have it good here. Real good. It's amazing how much we take for granted. And how very lucky we are.