At last week’s Rose Cafe, Ruth Magreta shared with us her incredible life story. Growing up in a small village in Malawi, she had no reason to believe other places in the world were vastly different from her surroundings. She lived a happy life with her family and her town, making the most of her situation by attending school and eventually going off to university. It was then that she truly began to realize how different other parts of the world were, and how she could use her education and her passion for agriculture to make a difference and help her country.

Ruth was very insistent that she did not regret her childhood and that she was happy, and I believe her. It is difficult for me to imagine what her life must have been like, as I grew up in completely different circumstances. Listening to her talk about her early life and her reaction to coming to the United States helped me realize that I may have been just as unaware of other people’s lives in my childhood as Ruth was in hers. Despite the instant access to information we have thanks to the Internet, I realized that I have never seriously considered what it must be like for people to live outside of the United States. I am much more locked into my local surroundings than I had known, and listening to Ruth’s story made me take a moment to broaden my perspective. And after seeing how she has striven to make the most of her education, I am further motivated to use what I learn at Cornell for social, rather than just personal, good.