Elephants and Blessings

I was watching a PBS program this evening about African elephants. The narrator had followed a particular herd of female elephants for 15 years, an elephant family that he came to know by distinct personalities and traits. Over the years, he was amazed at how much playful fun the elephants would have, frolicking in water holes and such. Then he got an opportunity to go to the desert in Namibia and witness some elephants there. The narrator was amazed at the differences he saw in the elephants there, trekking across the desert where water holes might be 70km apart. Those elephants were all about life and death, about survival. There was no light-hearted playfulness there, just living, getting to that next life-sustaining drink.

We Americans are do not appreciate enough, I think, our Savanna. We take for granted the lushness and the sheer plenty that is all around us. For us, not having enough is driving a 10-yr.-old vehicle. It's not starving (for most of us). Good grief, have you heard of Bling bottled water, which costs a disgraceful $450 each, sought after by the incredibly vain and shallow creature who has more money than sense, and just has to have what is unattainable for the rest of us?? While leprosy can be stopped in its tracks for $150 per patient, and $175 can buy a source of fuel for a family in an African village, and some lost souls are out there spending $450 for a dog-gone drink of water.

But, I digress. My point is that we Americans, and other privileged citizens of other countries, are in great part clueless about how the rest of the world has it. I cannot imagine not getting a hot bath on occasion. Now, I can imagine not having time for one. But I cannot imagine never in my entire life having a hot, soapy bath, or even one in clean, albeit cold, water.

We have much, much, much to be thankful for, every single day.