Self | Culture
Witnessing Poverty Misaligned My Relationship With Money — And Happiness
How living in a developing country can teach you, and deceive you.
A huge roasted pig sprawled across the table with an apple in its smiling mouth, frozen in mockery at my naïveté.
I was 6-years-old at the time and it would be years before I ate pork again. Conceptually, I knew where meat came from. But I’d never stood so close to the source. I was the only white boy at this Filipino birthday party and it showed.
The pork (lechon) was a local luxury, and emblematic of a humble life where people had to make do with what they had.
We were stationed in the Philippines for my dad’s Navy career. A huge typhoon slammed into the country on our first night, as we sat huddled in our small new condo.
Hours prior, I stared at the odd fireflies dancing outside my window. They pulsed on and off like Christmas lights. I heard the loud hooting calls of monkeys echoing across the jungle. Eventually, the storm came and rain blew sideways all night. We took it like a champ. We had arrived from Florida, and were trained and acclimated to such events. Sadly, many locals lost their homes that night.
