The week of Thanksgiving, I was working on our Rotary project in Antigua, which will be in February 2019. It’s the time of year for reflection, as in, what are we thankful for and I got to thinking about the difference between Antigua, a small, developing country and here (and even less developed, third world countries).
I immediately came up with four items to compare.
- Family– this is an interesting topic for comparing. We know the statistics state families in the US are not what they used to be, i.e. a lot of single parents. This is an issue in Antigua also although in many cases (extended) family is what keeps people going there. Family and church are very important in Antigua.
- Basics– are you thankful you don’t even think about the basics? The power is on, the water clean, food may be expensive, but choices abound and are plentiful. And while the roads seem to always be crowded, we do have pretty well-maintained roads (and transit). In Antigua, even the locals don’t drink from the tap, food is even more expensive, there are regular brown-outs, and the roads, to be blunt, stink. Have you seen the Dominos commercial about how they’re fixing potholes? They’d go broke trying that in Antigua.
- Education– our schools aren’t perfect but there’s a reason we go to Antigua to work in the schools. Ninety percent of the schools pale in comparison to schools around here. The other 10% are private, expensive, and have resources so they aren’t dependent on the Ministry of Education.
- Project completion– government in the US may be inefficient and costly, we may need massive amounts of infrastructure improvement, but mostly things get done. Our project in Antigua missed 2018 and 2019 is a small-scale project. Why? Because the government took two years and massive amounts of prodding to put the Internet in the schools (they only had to do 10-12 schools to fulfill their obligation to Rotary – let’s not touch the subject of their obligation to their students). There were inter-Ministry squabbles, intra-Ministry bickering, no sense of urgency (island time), etc.
Here’s the thing, finally, no matter what it’s like compared to the US or Europe, the people in Antigua are incredibly happy. The island way of life seems less stressful.
Think about what you have to be thankful for, in business and life.
