2600 US$ is the average income per capita in Laos in 2018 according to the data of the German foreign office, in Germany it’s a manageable monthly income. These abstract numbers are worlds apart from each other, a distance almost as hard to bridge as the walking-distance from Germany to Laos if you want to continue thinking further in an abstract manner. Compared to the living expenses in Laos, however, it’s enough money to make a living. But you only realise that essentially it’s not money that makes the world go round when you were lucky enough to call a sufficient amount of this fleeting good your own and even when it comes to decide how much of it is really “enough“ this is the parting of the ways. Even though we are living in a society in which no one suffers from any kind of shortcoming we are begrudgers, this was only recently evident in Germany‘s refugee debate. Many of us do not want to share any of our hard-earned prosperity, face those angrily who dare to come for a slice of our cake. Sad but true, most of those people coming for help don’t even want to be here, but have no choice.
We are used to this hostile stance, we were brought up with it, but in Laos we had to hit the brick wall again. Not by the defensiveness, but by the candour of a nation where people are not fighting for the latest entertainment electronics, but much rather for food. According to Wikipedia almost seventeen percent of the population are malnourished, only two thirds of men and one third of women know how to read and write properly and only forty percent of the current population had the chance to go to a school once in their lifetimes. And still we are not treated with the envy and contempt that some German citizens gave to people coming for help from war-stricken countries.
Laos is a developing county, equally worded it’s a country that’s right in the middle of a transformation. The question is how desirable a transition to the “modern“ world really is, such as an adaption of western standards and traditions. In some parts such as health and medical care it’s preferable without a doubt and definitely positive, but to me it’s questionable if we have to take the inherent joy of life from people in every country in the world with our western culture of efficiency. To my opinion it seems like we always think that people in developing countries have so much to learn from industrial countries because of our economic success, but at the end of the day it’s me who learns some important lessons in Laos, learns what it means to be alive and how thankful I can be that my life turned out the way it is. Germany has mainly taught me to function, to find my place in the machinery that keeps the success of our industrial nation alive, but that’s also what made me as efficient, targeted and hardened as I am today. I haven’t seen the blinders that I had to attach to myself, in order not to loose focus on the main purpose. I don’t need those blinders here anymore, I‘m allowed to see, question and understand life in all its bearings and colours.
This is not meant to be a complaint about life in Germany, I am thankful that I could grow up in a country that gave me so many opportunities and privileges. A secure and affordable medical care, a sound school and further education, a most widely enlightened and critical society and most certainly the German nature in all its diversity which I truly adore. Moreover I do not want to pillory and paint the whole population of Germany with the same brush, but I do think it’s useful and also necessary to think outside the box sometimes, to broaden your own horizon and to question yourself from time to time. That’s actually a point this journey always leads me back to: Who am I in this world? What do I do for this world? Where is my place in this world? And I really like these question because with every step I take I re-define them and with every decision I make I get new answers. Laos let’s me appreciate the beauty of the world once again and how lucky I am that I woke up today and get a new day to enjoy and a new chance in life to make a change.