Evergreen.

When I took this picture, it wasn’t really much of a thing, but that was because it was my first day in Tanzania. But then I realised, as a couple of days passed and I visited markets again and again, everything that you need is available throughout the year, fresh. This changes the lifestyle of the people completely.

In Dubai, we go to the supermarket once a week, dump our trolleys completely, buying junk food, snacks, instant food items and frozen food items which claim to be healthy, have no side effects and are low in cholesterol and blah blah blah. What all of this should mean is that the people there should theoretically be healthy and have no health complications. But in reality, we have 30 year olds suffering from diabetes, people unable to climb even one floor of stairs because they loose their breath within a couple of steps, children wearing spectacles that are as thick as themselves and as obese as they are, and hospitals billing people in the hundreds, if not thousands for a common cold.

In contrast to that, people in Tanzania have Bread, fruits and meat as their staple diet. And who do we have here? Buildings without elevators. Malls without escalators. Not that many cars- so people walk to most of the places. A not-so-common usage of plastics bags- so people carry their own bags and baskets to markets. No one wears spectacles- at least I haven’t spotted someone wearing it yet, and most important of all- I haven’t seen even a quarter of the junk food we see in a typical Dubai supermarket, over here. What all that translates into, is the watchman of the building where I stayed, who should definitely be well over 50, being able to carry two suitcases- each at least 9-10 kg, all the way up to the third floor while my Dad and I were struggling to carry one bag at a time (The building didn’t have elevators).

Compare the two cities and you’ll fins=d they both score one each in two areas. In terms of safety, security, sophistication and education, you find Dubai having the edge over Tanzania. But in terms of happiness, lifestyle and most importantly, health, Tanzania sweeps away the win. And I believe that you, reading this, will appreciate which factor between the two is more important in life. High rise buildings, or health that’s achieved through actually nutritious food and not some sort of imported vegetables which are grown using steroids and have no taste at all. I think we need to take the time to reflect on the kind of lifestyle that we’re living. A sedentary lifestyle constrained to our couch and Netflix. With almost no physical exercise. This is to add to the already pathetic condition of the so claimed ‘natural’ food that we eat.

Now I do know that all this isn’t in direct relation to the picture, but I think that life is a delicate balance of many factors- health, food, physical and mental exercise, society, and so on. I think we need to stop being lazy to cook our own meal and eat something unhealthy from KFC all the time. I think we need to pay more attention to our food and sleep habits as they play a large role in maintaining our health, as a sound mind and body can go a long way in achieving what could seem like a mammoth task.