Yesterday morning the students at my school finished their finals (yes, it was Sunday) and began their summer vacation. For some of the students it meant going home to find a job, others planned to stay near the school to study and find jobs in shops and tutoring children, but about 150 had a plan that I would never have dreamed of doing. It's summer vacation, you are supposed to take it easy, but these poor, rural students don't know what that means, so yesterday afternoon they loaded onto buses headed for "the big city" to be factory workers.
One student told me that they would all be working in the same factory (some kind of electric factory) 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not only will they be working together, but they will be living together in summer camp style housing. As an American I may think of this hard work as a good opportunity to make a lot of money over the summer, but they will be earning what it equivolent to $50 US per month.
Most of my students going to work in the factories are 20 years old, but when I found out that some of the 16 and 17 year old girls are going also I wanted to cry. "They are so young, so fragile, innocent, and they are going off to be corrupted by the big city!" But that is life for them and they are excited about the adventure. For the first time in their lives they get to leave the small town atmospere that is lives many decades ago and venture into the big city and how the rest of the world sees the 21st century. Their eyes are going to be opened in so many ways and they will never be the same.
So think about them as you lounge by the pool this summer, and if you have a 9-5 job in an air conditioned building, work hard and be thankful for all that you have been given. And for the teenagers out there, be so thankful that you get to experience the freedoms of youth.
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