1. Parents allow their children to play outside after the sun sets.
2. Community isn’t a noun. It’s a verb (but don’t try to use it in a sentence).
3. Television consumes fewer than the average eight hours a day. As a matter of fact, most households don’t even own one.
4. Education and educators are valued.
5. Families don’t mind spending time together.
6. Locks, securities systems and doors aren’t necessary. People trust each other with their things.
7. Good exercise is part of the lifestyle, not something that is prescribed.
I remember sitting in Sunday school, being threatened with the prospect that I might be one of the few destined to end up in some jungle in Africa, with nothing to eat but a bowl of living slugs and the dread of coming home to a world that accidentally had forgotten I existed.
Well, I’m not in Africa (yet), but I had the privilege to catch a swift glimpse of the jungle here in Peru, and I can’t help but feel that the jungle isn’t quite as dangerous as we would hope to think. We’ve often prided ourselves in our clean streets and claims to leave no child left behind, to protect our citizens by taking away their personal protection and to let the irresponsible speak without consequence, but have we missed something?
I do love America, I truly do. But when I stepped into one of the villages near Iquitos, I couldn’t help but feel that it had, in its own way, encapsulated many of the nobilities that the United States once determined to have. To be sure, there weren’t white picket fences and mothers and fathers paired with one son and one daughter, but there were hard work and beliefs and togetherness. There were diligence and patience and friendliness. There was something that a person would be willing to fight for, something that he would be destitute if he lost. In short, there was the sacred feeling of home.
But no meals of living slugs.
