The people of the rainforest live a life so different than ours, that sometimes I feel like I've gone back in time. In Peru, life is simple. Life is free from the clutters (or luxuries?) of televisions, cars, fast food, shopping malls, and the Internet. Using materials from the rainforest, people build their houses with their own two hands. They eat preservative-free food straight from their gardens, the rivers, and the rainforest. They live among monkeys, pink dolphins, and macaws. Does that sound like a life you want to live?

But wait ...a simple life does not necessarily mean an easy life. Would you be willing to give up the benefits of living in the United States? What's the trade off?

The villages that we have visited do not have libraries. Their schools have no books, and they don't have a hospital down the road in case somebody gets sick. People don't live as long as they do in the United States and more babies die at birth. There is no air conditioning in the communities; in fact, there is rarely electricity.

The other day I was talking to a nine year-old boy about where he lives. When I pulled out a map of Peru, he stared at it with a blank look on his face. When I showed him a map of South America, he didn't understand what we were looking at. The boy had never seen a world map.

That is a difficult thing for most of us to understand, coming from the United States. For this boy, however, it might be hard for him to understand why I can't catch a fish with a spear, why I can't find my way through the flooded forest, why I drive thirty minutes to work, and why I don't know how to build a shelter from trees and vines.

No matter where you live, there is a trade off. No way of life is better than any other. There is no perfect place, free from difficulty. But one thing is for sure: no matter where you go, whether it be the Peruvian rainforest or Chicago, your life is what you make of it. I have found that in Peru there is beautiful scenery and kind people everywhere -- just like where I come from in the United States.

May the forest be with you,

Anna