The evening hours of a crisp, spring day grew older as I saw a friend emerge from our residence entrance, wearing flip-flops and holding a shower caddy. It seemed a particularly peculiar sight, given that she was leaving the building with a bathrobe. She was on her way to shower at a nearby residence, as the hot water had stopped running in our building. A technical mishap, a nuisance, but certainly not a valid cause for an uproar of frustration.
The shrieking of exasperation, deriving from one of the ladies' bathrooms in my residence, shattered the comfortable stillness of the Monday night. Moments later, a few girls burst out, intense unhappiness expressed on their faces. The RA was nearby, and immediately targeted. I stood, quietly observing their reactions to this unfathomably offensive situation.
“Let's take this opportunity to appreciate every other day we do have hot water," I said, in a tone so calm as to intentionally juxtapose their resentment. There was a moment of utter confusion. A girl then picked up on the segregating detail that I spoke with a British accent. “Foreigners have such optimistic approaches," she mused, as if to arrive to an understanding of why I wasn't partaking in complaining. Perhaps that is true. But perhaps it's just common gratitude. She then pointed out how hot water is considered a commodity in America, and how I may not know that, being from abroad. I decided to leave out the fact that I've endured not having hot water for three weeks when working in a developing country. I cannot and will not judge or patronise people for not sharing similar experiences. Yet, it is extraordinarily difficult to understand and accept the insensitivity that some people have towards certain privileges, or the lack of them.
It is easy to become too comfortable with the goods and services we use on a daily basis for us to appreciate them. They say that it is when we lose something that we treasure it the most. Or, perhaps, it is when we obnoxiously complain about not being able to have it. I do not wish to badmouth these girls, but it opened my eyes to the importance of having a flexible attitude in life, and how much dyspathy I have for those who do not attempt to appreciate their blessings. You do not have to have been to the poorest parts of the world to know that not everybody has the ability to indulge in this privileged lifestyle, and to act with a little more respect for those to provide it to us.
