One of the challenges I struggle with here is separating the good and the bad from the different. So many illustrations abound but I will try to narrow down to a few representative ones and break them up into different posts to help us focus and meditate.
City Work
The workings of the Kumasi airport fascinated me. Systems don't flow as they do in the states. You don't need an ID to fly. If available spaces are short, you can get a boarding pass before you buy your ticket to ensure that you get a seat on the plane. But, one of the differences that stuck in my heart was the luggage system. In the states, we have a person driving a truck pulling three trailer-thingies (a very technical term) functioning as a luggage cart.
While (patiently?) waiting for my luggage (hip hip hooray!) to come onto the conveyer belt in Kumasi, I noticed the luggage cart - an oversized wagon (think a hay ride) piled high with luggage (about 30 bags at close to 50 lbs each) pulled using the hard straight metal handle by one man. Repeat this three times. And one of the wagons had a flat tire. He pulled these "carts" accross a hot parking lot in 95 degree weather by himself. At the steep hill coming up to the conveyer belt (which did not run by the way - it was just a sliding tool) someone helped push from behind a bit.
A truck and a wagon. Both move the luggage from one place to another. Both provide a person with one job. Is one way better or worse? Good or bad? Or are the methods just different?
Does the manual labor give more meaning and fulfillment that driving the truck? What about the use of gas and all that goes into producing the truck? Does that provide more jobs than making the wagon? At what environmental cost?
So much of our time here is spent processing the good, the bad, and the different. I can't find a black and white answer. What are your thoughts?
Interesting. When I was in Thailand, I saw ppl building roads by carrying rocks from point A to point B in hand held baskets!
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