Travel Stories

I apologize for our sluggish posting. All of the MinorMovement staff are spending time with there family or are traveling abroad. We will all soon be out of contact for we will not have access to technology during the next few weeks due to our separate travel plans.
I am writing this from Panama, I have broken my vow of no computers for the duration of my travels to bring two stories to your attention. The first is a serious issue and the second is rather off topic for this blog but is still has a note worthy significance.
It is not the first time that I have traveled to a Central or South American country. I have noticed on multiple occasions in various countries that people have a horrible habit of burning their trash. They do this because they have no where else to dispose of there waste. Dumping it in a land fill requires clearing of land and collection, plus it stinks. Since there is no easy, cheap way of disposing of their rubbish they presume that it would be better to burn it than to live with it near them. At least when it is burnt it is gone. This assumption that the trash simply disappears is wrong; in fact every bit of trash that was burnt thickly toxifies the air the natives breathe and floats in the atmosphere our world. I know that this is a world wide habit not just one that appears in these countries where I have witnessed it. It is an issue that will be difficult to settle but could be solved with a more effect waste management system and education.
The second story I have to share with you I feel is only relevant because it is the holiday season but in reality the happiness we feel at this time of the year should be felt at all times. I was on a small dirt road deep in the Panama rain forest, where the heat and humidity is strong and the mosquitoes persistent. We had past the city, the small towns, the tree farms, the cow pastures, and we had moved out of the general area of habitation and into the area where villages and small and far between. We have come across a few natives walking between villages and the children in the villages all wave back at us when we greet them. We saw a middle aged man miles from any near by village with a large heavy sack on his back. He wore old torn and dirty cloths but when we waved to him his reaction was very enthusiastic. His smile became almost to large for his face and he waved his arm in a great circle a bellowed a warming “HEYYYYOOO!!”. This happy man’s passing greeting brightened my day and my memory of him will continue to do so. It is my hope that I can be as enthusiastically happy with what my life hands me as this lone man in the rain forest is. I also wish that I may have shared with you a bit of his happiness and enthusiasm and have brightened a day somewhere where he can not.