Finances: Clothing Part 2

I forgot to mention another life lesson from my childhood years in South America.

We lived in the rain forest where it was hot and steamy.  Our missionary village, Tumi Chucua, was attached to a village of native Bolivians, and we interacted fairly often though the language difference was a barrier.  We spoke English, they spoke Spanish. And while we took Spanish in school, I never learned to speak well.

Anyway, that was a digression.  The Bolivians were poor.  We weren't rich by American standards, but we were rich compared to them.

Their clothing was ragged and usually gray.  The gray thing seemed weird to me but I THINK that the clothes were gray because the dye washed out of them due to repeated washings.  Let me assure you that the Bolivians were not "well dressed" in the American sense of the word.

I suspect each person had one or at most 2 sets of clothing. Mostly they just wore the same clothes day in and day out.

I look at our closets and our drawers and I am amazed at how many clothes we have.

I read about people from even 200 years ago in our country who had to spin their own thread and weave their own fabric.   For them, every garment was precious.

I think my exposure to truly poor people helps me realize that none of us need as many clothes as we have.  We have many clothes and I'll talk later about why we have many clothes while spending relatively little.  But when I get "bored" with my clothes and think, "I just want something new", I remember the Bolivians of Tumi Chucua.