Last night we watched "30 Days," a new show that premiered on the cable station FX, created by Morgan Spurlock of "Supersize Me." He and his fiance starred in the first episode. The concept is to step into someone else's shoes for 30 days, understand their world, struggle through their issues, seek to understand, and depending on that person's world, have a little fun, perhaps or discover some new interests.

Spurlock and his fiance lived on minimum wage for 30 days. They packed some backpacks and headed off to Columbus, Ohio, for reasons they explained in the show. Then they tried to find an apartment they would be able to afford on their new income. And then, they tried to find income. Spurlock is an engaging personality in my opinion, so when he talks about his day or comments on a situation, I'm there. I'm with him. The reviewer I heard on the radio that alerted me to this new show said that future episodes have other people put into different situations, and Spurlock is just the host. Those aren't quite as delightful as the first, but the concept is still great--to stretch people outside their comfort zone. Purposefully they place people in situations drastically different from their own "normal," so some shows will have a Christian living with a Muslim family, a straight man working at a gay bar, a teetotaler hanging out with binge-drinking college students.

The show is documentary style, so in that respect it isn't exactly the reality show concept (though close). Spurlock does seem to want to inform and educate as we also observe and commiserate. He provides background information and looks up related facts to help us understand a given situation. For instance, he and his fiance have no kids, so when he talked with his brother once by phone during the 30 days, his brother said, "You should try it with kids." So he shared facts about how many more expenses a family has, and how hard that is for families with kids. One of the guys he rode to work with had a family. That guy was trying to make it on minimum wage alone.

When Spurlock's girlfriend had an infection and couldn't work her job at a coffee shop, Spurlock worked two extra jobs to try to make up the difference (and cover the emergency room bill). At the end, when reviewing their bills, it seemed they were most disgusted with the medical bills. He had a wrist injury causing his arm to swell while he was working as a landscaper, so he went to the emergency room (the free clinics didn't have enough staff to see him). They charged him $40 for an ace bandage that they used to wrap his wrist. The visit itself was around $400. How is anyone who is working for minimum wage with no medical benefits supposed to take care of themselves, he demanded? I suppose they just don't go to the doctor. They wrap their own arms and hope for the best.

One touching scene for me was when they had been in their apartment several days with no furniture, eating on the floor, sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor. Then they learned that there was a church just two blocks away that had a free store for needy people. There were smiling volunteers offering free baked goods and coffee, and dozens of couches and chairs, tables, beds, clothes--nice looking clothes--household items like pots and pans, plates and cups and silverware. They were teary eyed at the obvious generosity of that congregation and the program. I was impressed with how well-run it was, and how much great looking stuff had been donated. The man who ran the store said something like, "There's enough to share. There's enough for everybody." I thought about our Goodwill store, filled to the brim with bins behind the doors with three times what is out for sale, waiting to be sorted. There is enough to share. There's enough for everybody. So why do people have to go without?

The most disturbing portion was when they talked about a bill that has gone to Congress several times proposing that we raise minimum wage to reflect the rising cost of living. There was an expert explaining that it doesn't work to do that, and said that it wouldn't work, it would undermine the economy. I don't know anything about economics, but it was disturbing to see that those same politicians who voted "no" to raising the minimum wage did vote to raise their own salaries to reflect the rising cost of living.

I kept thinking about that book that came out several years ago, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805063897/ref=pd_sxp_f/104-2064230-8439104?v=glance&s=books

(I can't figure out how to do links in this Blogger thing yet)

She took low-income jobs across America, making the same depressing, sometimes horrifying, discoveries.

How can we walk in another person's shoes like Spurlock and Ehrenreich have? Watching his show and reading her book and finding others like that is a start. I'm still trying to read about Rwanda, hoping that if I gain even a hint of the suffering and madness of Rwanda, perhaps I'll have a fleeting glimpse of many other struggling nations on that continent. Seeing "30 Days" reminded me that to appreciate the ups and downs of every human being, a few days, even a few minutes, in their world would probably do me good.