December 4, 2012

THE BRIGHTONIAN

First-world and third-world thinking

ou are a female teenager in a first world country. You wake up at seven in the morning, take a nice warm shower, wash your hair with some Dove shampoo, and enjoy the vanilla body wash you just bought for five dollars at the store. You slip out of your shower, into your 100% cotton towel, and dry off. After you are done drying your hair, applying hair products, make-up, deodorant, and perfume, you head out to your car and drive to Starbucks to get yourself a $5 caffeinated specialty beverage. You cruise up to the drive thru, order your grande vanilla chai tea, complaining about how you couldnt get a venti, and cruise off to school. Sounds easy, right? You get to school and use your iPhone to look up the latest tweets or instagram pictures of your friends, you drive to McDonalds for lunch, and youre listening to the radio. Its a typical day. You drop your pencil in the hallway, and it doesnt even come to your mind, its just a pencil. Then one day, youre in class and the Wi-Fi for your phone isnt working What now? You get angry, shut it off, and wait until you get home so you can use the Wi-Fi there. Its hard to believe that this is our countrys number one worry: slow internet connection. Instead of worrying about water, food, clothing, and other things that are actually essential to our day to day lives. According to first-world-problems.com, a list of worries in a first world country are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Slow internet connection. Babysitting for an hour and the kids not knowing their own Wi-Fi password. Typing so fast that expensive fake nails keep hitting the wrong keys. Paying $400 for Beats by Dre headphones, but having to return them because they made a persons ears too hot. Wanting to go for a walk around the neighborhood, but not willing to go until a person finds one of the six iPhones that plays their walking music. National parks and wildlife preserves being woefully under equipped when it comes to Wi-Fi connection. Putting a Band-Aid on one thumb and having only one free hand to text. Having a check so large that a person is not able to deposit their money using the iPhone app. Daylight savings completely throwing off when a TV show comes on. Shopping at Wal-Mart because it is cheap, and not wanting to look like the other people who shop at Wal-Mart, but not being able to.

Now, imagine you are a female teenager in a third world country. You wake up at three in the morning, creep around your one room shack, trying not to wake your eight brothers and sisters to go get food and water for the day. You grab your stick with some fishing wire you found the other day, and you head out to the river. You are there ALL DAY LONG, until the sun almost sets, just in time for dinner. You barely caught a small fish, just enough for two average people. Youre crying, you cant breathe; in your mind you have let your family down. Then it gets worse. You find out that your sister has an infection, that could kill her any day now, and she dies right before you get home; she didnt have enough to eat. You serve up your catch for the day, and let everyone else eat, but you. The next day, your sister is buried next to your shack, no head stone, no prayer, just a burial. You start the next day over, looking for clean drinking water and food for the day. In a third world country, water is the number one thing they worry about, clean drinking water, instead of even dreaming about internet, two more pairs of pants, or some shoes. According to Global Issues, a list of worries in third world countries are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Clean drinking water. 1.4 million children will die each year from lack of access of clean drinking water. Sanitation. Inadequate sanitation contributes to the deaths of about 1.5 million children each year from diarrheal disease. Poverty. People living in poverty are less likely to have access to healthcare, educa tion, and other services. Population Growth. A large population growth leads to increases in poverty. Low per capita income. There are currently 48 poorest countries with low per capita income of less than a dollar a day. Low income causes families to not be able to survive on that salary. Unemployment affects families in need and lack of work contributes to all of the above problems. Consumerism of other countries is a contributing factor in poverty around the world. Education. The lack of education leads to the most significant factor of girls drop ping out of school due to teenage pregnancies and related consequences. Debt within the country causes third world countries to go undeveloped for a lon ger period of time. Undeveloped nations are much more likely to have poorer citizens. Diseases and lack of medicine affects third world countries because it increases mortality rates, especially in infants.

One of the biggest worries in a third world nation is the availability of clean drinking water, something that those in the U.S. often take for granted. Top photo courtesty of Amnestry International Bottom photo by Chase Brown

Story by: Kennedy McCarver and Taely Lee

In first-world countries, like the U.S, education is a right given to all children. Students receive materials, desks, and the proper equipment; however, in third-world countries, getting an education is much more difficult as access to building, supplies, and even teachers is limited. Top photo courtesy of Amnesty International Bottom photo courtesy of Meghan Frenzel, Chemistry teacher

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NEWS EDITOR: TAELY LEE AND KENNEDY McCARVER