The sweet smells of spring!

March 12, 2008

So things have finally started to warm up here! The flowers and trees are budding. The outhouses have started to smell as they defrost. Ah, the joys of living abroad. There are certain things that you don’t even think about anymore. They just become apart of daily routine. You don’t question where that meat came from or how it was prepared. Oh, we only have one chicken now? Fresh eggs sure are nice along with fresh meat. At home you usually had to go a little out of the way to get fresh eggs here you just go out back and get them from the hen house or from the neighbor.

I guess I truly don’t understand just how expensive things have gotten in Georgia. My host family keeps saying how everything has gotten so expensive over the last couple of months. In the states when prices go up on the staple foods you complain a bit but it doesn’t really seem to faze you all that much. You are still going to buy those things in the long run. Here it seems as though people talk about how expensive everything has gotten all the time. People really stop buying those things unless it is a special occasion. The incomes in families of this country aren’t like those of the US nor are there an abundance of alternative options for assistance for struggling families. Before I left the states I had a good job and made a decent amount of money and survived. Here it seems that most people don’t have don’t have decent paying jobs and are struggling just to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. Granite some people still think that the government should be providing for them and don’t want to let go of the fact that Georgia is no longer a communist country. Other people are embracing the fact that they are no longer under the communist rule and are open to a changing society with greater opportunities. Trying to explain that not everybody in America is rich is a difficult concept. The view that many here have is tainted for all they see is the “life styles of the rich and famous” which is not how a majority of Americans live. Most Americans struggle to get by on daily basis and have to work hard for what they have.