ADVANCE CHAPTER: A Poverty-Stricken World

**************

My first book follows my first year-long journey across the world. I visited 26 countries in that time, and witnessed some truly life-changing things. One of those things was poverty, true poverty the likes of which most Americans cannot fathom. I discuss this poverty in individual chapters as it pertains to specific countries, but I felt it necessary to include an entire chapter on the topic to discuss it at length. This is that chapter.

This is an advance chapter from the book, which you can get here from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Lulu, and more.

************** 

I had never witnessed true poverty before. I had seen the poor, the homeless, the oppressed, but true poverty had always eluded me. Not that I knew it, nor was it something I sought out, but that hard reality slammed into me like a freight train when I finally came face-to-face with it across the world. From the Berber tribes in Morocco making their money with carpets to the Cambodians climbing trees in the jungle for fruit, seeing this poverty-stricken world as a traveller was an eye-opening, gut-wrenching, soul-churning experience that changed my view of the world in fundamental ways. Suddenly, I saw my suits, personal library, German car, British motorcycle, and 300 USD backpack for what they were: a sign of just how fortunate I was in life that I was born and raised in a country where I was practically immune from the meaning of true poverty. Most in the rest of the world were not so fortunate.

The Top One Percent

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the Western world has been rocked by calls for the "top one percent" to "pay their fair share." That was a good tagline in an economy that saw the automotive industry, housing market, and energy prices crash, sending the worldwide economy into the worst recession since the Great Depression while corporate executives and bankers paid themselves huge bonuses with government bailout money. But who exactly were the "one percent" and what was "their fair share?" In the United States, the top one percent of taxpayers paid forty-five percent of government taxes, while the top one percent of worldwide income earners held just under twenty percent of global wealth. The first of those statistics seemed unfair to the top one percent, while the second greedy.

The truth was, the global one percent contained a large swath of the Western world. For a single income earner, earning just 63,000 USD per year put you in the top one percent for global income. That came out to half of American earners in the top one percent globally, something those who called for the top one percent to pay their fair share didn't understand. Even our poverty line, which, as of this writing, was just under 15,000 USD per year, was seated in the top fifteen percent of worldwide income earners. Compared to places like Cambodia and Turkey, where the average annual income was less than 2,000 and 11,000 USD, respectively, even our impoverished lived on substantially more money than most of the world.

Less than twelve percent of Americans lived below our poverty line, and only a few thousand lived below the world's median income. That is not to make light of our poverty issues, as they are relative to national economies; however, it puts into perspective just how lucky Americans were on the global scale to live in a country where even our poverty line placed us in the top fifteen percent of global wealth. That was life-changing money to Cambodians, Turks, Balinese, Vietnamese, and countless other nationalities and ethnic groups worldwide. We Americans were privileged beyond measure just to be born and live in such a wealthy country.

Systemic Poverty

Poverty, true poverty, was a systemic issue on the international stage. There weren't rich forces at play controlling the world economy like some conspiracy theorists may have believed, but there were real problems out of an individual’s control that caused them to live in poverty. It wasn't simply a matter of moving or pulling yourself up by your bootstraps; when the average income for your country was 4,000 USD, getting out of a poverty-stricken world took more than sheer gumption.

Some communities were wrecked by oppressive regimes of decades gone by. The Bunong people, who fled to the jungle during the Khmer Rouge, still lived there, forgotten and left behind by an advancing society. They lived dangerously in the jungle, climbing thirty-metre trees for fruit that only became harvestable once a year, building their own houses on stilts, and tilling massive fields by hand. In the Sahara, the Tuaregs were similarly affected, as they fought rebellions for their rights as the governments controlling their lands increasingly sought Western investment over propping up their people. The Aboriginal tribes of Australia lived on their traditional lands in the same ways they had long before the United Kingdom arrived as modern Australia moved on to become the world's thirteenth-largest economy, leaving the Aboriginal tribes behind as the colonised areas developed in an era where the Aboriginals were seen as lesser people.

Others were subjected to modern poverty stressors which they couldn't dream of addressing on their own. The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative subjected nations across the world, but especially in Africa, to a form of national debt slavery, which caused inflation and drove up costs. In an uncertain trade situation with the United States, the Mexican Peso dropped twenty-five percent against the dollar in less than six months, forcing local bakeries and restaurants to increase prices to remain open. Egypt's currency black market, which, during my time there, offered 50 EGP to 1 USD instead of the official 30 EGP to 1 USD rate, caused the Egyptian Pound to see fifty percent inflation in just three months, from December to March. As inflation and costs rose, so did the poverty rates.

Socialist economies, like Venezuela, Vietnam, and Argentina (before the 2023 election), caused poverty with government policies as they regulated goods and services out of the hands of the workers and into the cities and business class. In Vietnam, for example, it didn't matter how much rock you had on your land; you had to sell it to the government at a low price so they could turn around and sell it to contractors (i.e., corrupt business friends) for a fair price. Argentina tried and failed to control poverty, as so many socialist economies did, by offering government jobs to bolster employment, thus creating more inflation for the entire country and driving continued poverty.

These stories and more could be found in every corner of the globe, from the wealthiest city in the United Arab Emirates to the poorest village in Yemen. Poverty was an issue that couldn't be tackled by infusing millions of dollars of cash into an economy or electing new officials. It required wholesale governmental, economic, and sociological changes that were too unrealistic to reproduce on a worldwide scale.

Hard Work Being Poor

"Man, being poor is hard work." I said this to myself countless times as I travelled Southeast Asia. I was fortunate in that I had never truly experienced poverty. Even in my time away from my professional life, I had enough money saved to put me far above any poverty line. While I felt the budget tighten in places like Germany, Ireland, and New Zealand, I was by no means hurting for money. I could afford to buy new shirts if mine ripped, a new daypack for just a few months, and plane tickets home if there was some emergency. I didn't have to make my own food, let alone harvest it, distil my own liquor, or go without a shower for days because I had no running water. Even as an unemployed world traveller, I lived better than most of the world's population.

That was not so across most of the globe. Being poor was hard work. Social safety nets and government programmes may have been the norm in Europe, the United States, and Canada, but in the jungles of Southeast Asia, the streets of Mexico, and the deserts of MENA, there were no such saving graces. To survive meant to work and work hard. No one was exempt, not men, women, or kids attending school. Everyone had to chip in to keep the family fed, clothed, and housed.

In Iraq, little kids scurried around markets with orange wheelbarrows, offering to carry groceries for shoppers. This wasn't for money for toys or ice cream like the small service jobs American kids did for their parents and neighbours. These wheelbarrows provided food and water to the family in an economy where the national government couldn't even be trusted to set a fair exchange rate with the USD, let alone provide for its people. Children barely old enough to walk and talk moved down the streets in Mexico, offering beaded bracelets, plants, and homemade honey and jams, trying to make money while their parents did the same. The average Mexican in Tulum made just 500 MXN per day (about 25 USD), and these odd goods provided vital income to families who otherwise would have nothing to eat.

In the jungles of Southeast Asia, that hard work intensified, as families worked farms year-round to bring in crops. Those fortunate enough to have learned English could get jobs as guides, but even that was hard work as they walked the jungles with new tour groups every few days. After a week of hiking the Cambodian jungles and three days of walking the rice fields of Vietnam, I was beat, but our guides simply rested overnight and started anew the next morning. Luan, my motorbike driver in Vietnam, told me how bad his knees hurt at the end of every tourist season, but he had to keep driving his motorbike to provide for his mother, wife, and son, who were back home preparing the fields for harvest.

Happiness as a Choice

I would never forget Bon’s words in Kampong Phluk: "Don't have much, but we happy while we here." In a village where the men spent their days in the dry season repairing houses, the women caught and preserved fish, and children worked the fields, they found a reason to be happy. At the end of a long day, they could sit in the shade and enjoy a cheap beer or happy water with their friends. That was a gut punch to someone like me who, when I made six figures at my security firm, could always come home with something to gripe about and ruin my off time. In the most impoverished parts of the world, there was always a reason for happiness. My dad told me many years ago that happiness was a choice. Back then, I was struggling with depression, which he didn't understand and undercut his point. Nowadays, though, I literally saw his point under shaded trees after a hard day's work.

JC was among the happiest, most upbeat people I met while travelling. He spent half the year tending to his farm and half guiding tourists through the jungle so he could afford to put his daughter through private school and, one day, university. He was lean and fit as a matter of circumstance rather than choice, and he only had the one pair of jeans, but he genuinely loved life. JC couldn't afford to buy fancy Bluetooth speakers, so he created sound amplifiers out of bamboo stalks using his machete, proudly proclaiming, "UBL!" when he was done. He made cups and utensils out of bamboo and sticks, as did Tchi Tchi, the ranger, because that was what they had back home. Whenever JC made something from bamboo or showed us some trick of the jungle, he proudly proclaimed, "I'm just a farmer!" By "just a farmer," he was implying that other professions seemed to outrank him in society's eyes, but he loved where he came from and how he lived. I couldn't imagine most Americans I knew proudly proclaiming they were just a farmer when they spent half their year marching through the oppressive heat in the Cambodian jungle without a breeze as gnats buzzed around their heads.

Luan, too, was one of the most upbeat people I met. He struggled to provide for his family with a newborn, but he always had a smile to wear, practical jokes to play, and a game of pool to hustle. Everything he did was for his son, and he wasn't shy about the financial strain having a young child put on his family. Even so, he loved his life. He told me, "I have friends from all around the world!" True enough, I was one of them. Luan also learned from people he met on the Ha Giang Loop, making him one of the more informed people I met in my travels, even more so than Westerners with university degrees and professional credentials. While there was plenty to get him down and that he would change about life if he could, Luan put those things on the back burner. Instead, he chose to live in the happiness of the moment.

People could always choose to be happy, even in the throes of extreme poverty. It was a lesson I needed to see and learn in what I realised was my far-more-than-comfortable life. While I would never disparage my own country's poverty-stricken citizens, my experiences with Luan, JC, and others made me re-evaluate my views on the poverty situation back home, where we had all sorts of government programmes, church outreach centres, and social safety nets to help people in need. Some of the happiest people I met were in places that had no such help.

Can't Solve it All

I heavily considered handing the man in Vietnam 1,000,000 VND to pay his bank debt, just as I frequently debated saying "no cambio" in Mexico or hesitating to negotiate with merchants in Tunisia. I could easily afford it and would hardly feel the impact of such an expense in the long run. It was, after all, a matter of 40 USD, less than half of my daily budget. Ultimately, I decided against it, just as I decided against large tips and accepting posted prices in souks. It wasn't a matter of money or principle, either. It was a matter of culture and long-term viability.

In many cultures, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, accepting charity was frowned upon. Instead, every gift of charity needed to be met with some service or good. The service didn't have to be of equal value to the gift; there only had to be an exchange. It was shameful for a man to accept free money from another man in many cultures, especially a foreign tourist. In some cultures, it was considered an insult even to offer. I wasn't culturally adept enough to know when and where such a gift could be offensive.

I also recognised, with some reservation, that if everyone thought like me, we would only compound the poverty problem. Infusing unregulated, outside money into the local economy only increased inflation. That was the problem Egypt faced, and one which long-term expatriates complained about in their chosen homes. For example, Bali was a cheap vacation destination, where you could get beautiful ocean-view villas for just 50 USD a night. Most people would happily pay more, and most businesses would love to charge more, but market forces were the same everywhere, and this would only inflate prices for locals. Eventually, they would be priced out of the area entirely. It was a law of economics that applied from giving financial assistance to the poor to subsidising farming to price-fixing petrol. If every well-meaning Western tourist gave money to poor farmers and labourers in impoverished countries outside of the government's monetary and fiscal policies and regulations, we would never solve the root causes of that poverty. We would only make it more expensive to be poor.

It was also true that paying or gifting more simply because we had the means could cause a dependence problem. It was a harsh thing to say, but too many places in the world had been disrupted by travellers, tourists, and philanthropists thinking they were doing a good thing by paying too much for something and helping out a family in need. As someone who had travelled to locations both on and off the tourism circuit, it became easy to tell where locals became dependent on unregulated foreign cash. Mexico was one of those places, something many Mexicans resented. Tipping in Mexico wasn't always a normal practice; it was something Americans did in high-tourism areas, because it was our culture to do so. That was understandable, to a degree, in the fancy resorts, but that culture steadily made its way out of the resorts and into the cities and pueblos. Tulum, a place I love, had only recently developed a tipping culture, and I knew several local Mexicans that hated it. It affected them as much as it did the tourists, as meals started to cost just a little bit more as tips became expected. Some restaurants didn't care about tips for their servers; they were usually the extremely grateful ones. Others expected it, and even put recommended tips on their receipts. Worse, petrol station attendants didn't expect a tip; they would instead scam you out of a 500 MXN note and pocket the difference. The result? I watched as prices on basic goods like bread increased twenty percent over two years. The dependency problem led directly to the inflation problem.

It was a hard reality to swallow. I could afford a 60 EGP tip to a baggage handler, a 1,000,000 VND donation to a new friend, or 82,000 IQD for a nice room in Iraq, but what I could afford or wanted wasn't the point. At some point, other travellers and I needed to realise that we couldn't solve the world's poverty problem on our own, no matter how hard we tried. It was too complex and grandiose a task for us to have any substantial positive impact, and it was far too easy to accidentally cause disastrous consequences for those we were trying to help.

We Are Truly Lucky

In no other area of life did I realise that Americans were truly lucky than when it came to poverty. Being born in the United States, being eligible for an American passport, and having the social safety net available to us put our citizens light-years ahead of the overwhelming majority of the world. We lived in a country where help was available in almost every city, where we didn't have to walk in forty-degree Celsius heat for eight hours a day and months on end to make enough money to provide for our children’s education. Our economy wasn't wrecked with most of our population (indeed, hardly any of it) living beneath the world poverty line, and unregulated infusions of charity dollars didn't threaten the stability of regional and national economies. We weren’t sending our pre-teen children up thirty-metre trees to pick fruit for a month to make enough money for the year, and we didn't have to leave our families for six months at a time to provide for their future. Sure, we had our problems, but we also had our fortune that most of the world's population couldn't even dream of having.

Just being born in the United States made us some of the luckiest, most fortunate people on the planet. I wished we would act like it.