I never realized just how good I truly have it until I went to Mexico recently on a cruise.  This wasn't the first cruise I had taken, but this was my first trip to Mexico.

I truly enjoyed our trip; we saw and did so many wonderful things; but I also saw some things that made me cry.  Take for instance the bus trip we took to Mexico City.  We went to Mexico City to shop and sightsee, what any normal tourist would do, but some of the people I saw absolutely shattered my heart.

There was a woman and two small children, children who were barely past babyhood.  They were wearing diapers and both were dirty, as was the woman: she was dressed in mere rags and her hair was caked with dirt and God knows what else.  They all looked like they hadn't eaten in several days.  Across the aisle from her was a successful businessman who barely gave them a second glance.  If he did look at them, he scowled at them, a look of contempt and disgust on his face.

The littler of the two children, a boy, kept stealing glances at me.  I think he was really staring at the cookie in my hand.  He looked like he was hungry: I could almost see the drool gathering around his mouth.  Feeling a sense of compassion, I handed the cookie to the child.  He greedily gobbled it up and the mother gave me a smile of thanks.  That was when I noticed that all were barefoot.

A teenager sitting in a rickety, worn wheelchair flailed uncontrollably; her caretaker (or was it a nurse?  I did not kow) held the girl's arms as she tried to feed her some mush.  The teenager was making grunting noises.  The woman got impatient and suddenly struck the girl across the face.  The sound of the slap against the teenager's face struck deep within my soul; it made me cringe.  I know it had to hurt; she hit the child quite hard.

A group of teenaged boys were looking at a magazine; from the way they were laughing, it was obvious that they were enjoying whatever they were looking at.  It was a Playboy; I could see the nearly nude model on the cover; she had nothing on but a skimpy bikini and a smile that lit up her face like a neon sign.  I didn't need any translation.  

It was when I realized that even though it was a decidedly foreign country, people in Mexico were just like us back home in America, even though they may have looked differently or spoke a different tongue.  They had distinct likes and dislikes, distinct interests and personalities.  Yet language, culture, and race divided us and made me feel like I was the foreigner, which, in truth, I was, because I was only visiting Mexico.

I wished deep down in my spirit that I could do something to help some of these struggling people.  Their economy was the pits and it was no surprise that so many Mexican people were fleeing north, in the hopes of finding a better life for them, as well as their families.  I decided that when I got back from my cruise, I would do something to help in some way.  And I have done just that: I have decided to gather some gently-used clothes, toys, and non-perishible food items to send to needy people in Mexico.  And all it took was a simple bus ride to get the entire ball rolling.