As I sit here in Enterprise AL, I realize just how fortunate I am and how much my life has turned in the past three years. Before I took this job, I was sitting in central PA as a project manager for commercial and residential construction companies. But, deep inside, I knew I had the talents and knowledge to be more than what the people in my hometown were giving me.Through my drive here I had 8 hours to do a lot of thinking, pondering and exploring. I left at 11:00am and set the Tom-Tom with the address and went off to the east. As dumb as it sounds, technology has taken over my life and I am grateful to be living in this era. When I moved to Louisiana I set the GPS and relied solely on it. There I was, like thousands of others each day, I was relying on technology with absolutely no paper map to help me if I needed. And this was no different. I was very happy to see that the GPS had taken me through a part of the world I had never seen...besides on "Nick @ Nite" each evening. I was enthralled by the small towns I was guided through in Alabama. There still exists the "old" Main Street towns with the small shops where everyone in town shops. The photos in the windows were reminiscent of those found in "Mayberry" where Aunt Bea and Gomer were often found walking. As I passed through these towns I often looked down at my Tom-Tom to make sure I was still on the correct path.
It was on one of these "Main Streets" when my BlackBerry had beeped and I suddenly realized...this is where my past, present and future may all meet. Here I was looking at a small slice of a true southern town where technology had guided me and technology had reminded me. It was a moment in my life that I had actually not wanted to partake in my email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. I realized at this moment that my life was much different than those of the life where this town had originated...before technology was born, before I was born.
Then there are the photos and stories of the approximate 9-million people in Haiti. This is a third-world country that has been devastated by poverty, corruption and poor political practices where roughly half of the population is illiterate and practices voodoo. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80% of the population living under the poverty line and 54% in abject poverty. Two-thirds of all Haitians depend on the agricultural sector, mainly small-scale subsistence farming, and remain vulnerable to damage from frequent natural disasters, exacerbated by the country's widespread deforestation. While the economy has recovered in recent years, registering positive growth since 2005, four tropical storms in 2008 severely damaged the transportation infrastructure and agricultural sector. US economic engagement under the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE) Act, passed in December 2006, has boosted apparel exports and investment by providing tariff-free access to the US. HOPE II, passed in October 2008, has further improved the export environment for the apparel sector by extending preferences to 2018; the apparel sector accounts for two-thirds of Haitian exports and nearly one-tenth of GDP. Remittances are the primary source of foreign exchange, equaling nearly a quarter of GDP and more than twice the earnings from exports. Haiti suffers from high inflation, a lack of investment because of insecurity and limited infrastructure, and a severe trade deficit. In 2005, Haiti paid its arrears to the World Bank, paving the way for reengagement with the Bank. Haiti is expected to receive debt forgiveness for about $525 million of its debt through the Highly-Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative by mid-2009. The government relies on formal international economic assistance for fiscal sustainability. There is currently no regular military forces - small Coast Guard; the regular Haitian Armed Forces (FAdH) - Army, Navy, and Air Force - have been demobilized but still exist on paper until or unless they are constitutionally abolished. There is no human that should endure these horrific conditions and my biggest problem I have with the "Help for Haiti" telethons is that it should not take a natural disaster of epic proportions to help these people. We are all on this Earth and should be living on it as one...not many. We should all be working to lower poverty, lower the upper class and raising education throughout! If we were successful in doing this we would raise everyone's quality of life.
I look forward to the future but, I am grateful for the technology to remind me of the past. No matter how technology has taken over our lives we must remember:
- technology isn't a bad thing
- we are all humans with many like us
- many more are still living without the technologies we rely on and deserve these as well
Being human is nature...where we are born has dictated our future. Until next time...ciao!
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