This Sad Home

Our world is a very sad place.

Usually, I am an optimistic person. I underestimated the cruelness, the violence, the crime, the hate - everything unpleasant going on around me. Perhaps it was because I live in a community where everything still seems pure, completely untouched by the bad things, happening on the outside, to everyone else. I thought that this was a safe haven, a sanctuary. Maybe it is for now. But how long do I have before that changes?

Only twelve years ago, Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo lived a happy life in St. Catherines, Ontario, about an hour from my house and twenty minutes from my cottage. I've been there. I thought of it as a peaceful place, quaint and sweet. It was like a small community from a movie where everybody knew each other. Karla's 15-year-old sister Tammy idolized her older sister and never would have suspected her deep psychotic desires until December 23rd, 1990. Paul and Karla brutally drugged, raped, tortured and eventually killed the innocent young girl. This behavior continued when the couple went uncaught in the murder, ultimately claiming the lives of three young girls, all of them only a year older than me and completely innocent.

This is a sad story to tell, but a very relevant and significant one. In seemingly happy, average communities all over the country, North America, and the world, this happens daily. How can I tell if someone close to me is actually not who they seem? How can you know who to trust? I have never questioned my judgement on the people around me, but researching this story and thinking about it has really put my guard up and my opinion of the world around me down. Of course, I still appreciate the happy moments in my life and enjoy them thoroughly... Maybe even appreciate them a whole lot more. I'm just so happy to be alive. I could've been one of those poor, slaughtered girls, we're really no different. And maybe one day it will be me, or someone I know. The chances of these incidents increase as our society spirals faster and faster into this corrupt hole of sorriness and sadness, and soon I won't be able to live on this world. Soon, it will be unbearable, until we'd sooner abandon our world than call it home.

Be the Change You Wish to See In the World.

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." -Mahatma Gandhi.

This is a very well-known quote, I believe. It is a very good way of cleanly summarizing this whole world-change topic in an understandable and relatable way. What does it mean to you? To me, it says that just wishing for something to happen isn't enough. Poverty or starvation or child labour in Africa will not end if you don't do anything about it.

Kids and teenagers my age don't usually think they can do anything about it. We're just kids, right? That stuff should be left to the experienced, professional, adults. But what they are starting to discover is that they soon will be those adults with that responsibility. This generation has, almost literally, the world on their shoulders. We will be the turning point that must work to improve and fix the starvation in Africa, child labour in Bangladesh and poverty in Cuba. Now that everyone has realized this, my generation is under a lot of pressure to make a difference in the world and have an impact on other people. But maybe it is too much at some times.. after all, right NOW, we are still kids.

I feel sometimes like I could take on a task for an adult in changing the world, but I wouldn't have a clue where to start. There is so much that needs to be improved, but to start a business like Free the Children or something like that feels like way too big of a job; almost impossible. I'm not Craig Kielburger! But he started out the same way as me, only slightly more oblivious to what was going on, and I don't think I can have an impact? Maybe I should rethink.

Lately i've really been considering options to change things. Terry Fox ran across Canada to raise money for Cancer, but i'm not good at anything the same way he is at running. What could I possibly do?! Well, to people in Canada - and America for that matter - who have it easy, maybe they wouldn't think much of anything I would do. But to those children in Africa, practically anything is a big help, no matter how insignificant it is to me. And there the ones who need to be helped out. So I don't need to run across the country, or start my own business before i'm fourteen. Maybe I will someday, but for now, I will stick to the small stuff because that way I know I can handle it. For now, i'm still dreaming about the BIG changes I could make to those kids.

Andie, xoxo.