Seeing Through Virtual Reality

Recently, my English class and I participated in a virtual reality experience. I watched a video called "The Displaced". Although watching it made me kind of dizzy, it was overall very eye opening. It also related to the book we are reading, Exit West. During the virtual reality video, I got to see and really experience what children and refugees are going through. The video showed many children and families whose homes are in shambles and appear as piles of rubble. The whole experience was extremely intriguing and shocking to see that people really do live like this. 

The video also reminded me of a trip I went on two summers ago to Costa Rica. During the trip we did  a lot of recreational activities but also some service work for the people of the town we were staying in. We also visited the slums of Costa Rica called La Carpio, the poorest area of the country. The people of La Carpio do not have running water and live in shacks made out of scraps of metal. There is a river that runs through the village. Parts of it is used for drinking water and serve as a place to wash clothes, and other parts are used as a place where sewage is dumped, because there is no sewage or running water. Needless to say their living conditions are very very poor, but the people of La Carpio seem oddly happy and joyful. They always walk around with a smile on their faces and greet everyone with a warm "hola". The kids there are always running around the streets playing games and looking for friends. There is a local school in the village, it is a one room school house. Many of the kids go to school until about 5th grade. I visited the school and played with many of the little kids. They do not speak English so communicating was difficult, but they read books to me in Spanish and I read books to them in English, so everyone was happy!