stephanielove

When travelling in Cambodia, a few friends and I had the opportunity to stay overnight in a minority village in the mountains. I’d never seen anything as cool as the vibe that these hill tribes had going on. They were poor peanut farmers and a lot of them couldn’t afford for their children to go to school, but no one ever went hungry- if one family didn’t have enough to eat, the community made sure they still ate. When someone caught an animal they wouldn’t go sell it in the market- they would cook it for the whole village, then gather together, all drink some rice wine and have a party. As a village they walk to neighboring villages for parties and feasts. Everyone works on the farms in the morning, and in the afternoon they play volleyball while the sun is setting. Each afternoon at dusk, they have a communal shower in the jungle, sourced from a waterfall- an image right out of a Garnier Fructose ad.
This village may very well be where I have bought some of my peanuts from. Companies we consume from buy large amounts of raw materials - whether it be coffee, chocolate, cotton or peanuts - at a very low price from developing countries to fulfill the basic business principle of lowering production costs. The farmers in this village in Cambodia worked hard all day yet couldn’t afford employees, so often their children would have to work for them instead of going to school. These people could eat but couldn’t afford basic education and health care.
For a company to produce a low-priced grocery item to sell to us - the consumers of the West- they are locking that village into a lifestyle without proper education and healthcare. This is what doesn’t sit right with me. How can I buy something which pays the farmer such a low price that they can’t afford basic healthcare and education? I know that at least they have food, and I guess if I was to buy peanuts from the companies they sell to at least I’m saving them from starvation. But it is wrong, when I have every opportunity in the world in Australia and other people cannot even have the basic requirements for life such as education, healthcare and an assurance of food.
I have a strange sense of envy of their simple, humble and loving lives challenging our decadent lifestyles but at the same time being so thank-ful I was not born into a situation where there is no opportunity to learn or to grow skills that might be outside of my parent’s trade.