Hope

Some notes on one man's view on hope:

I spoke with one man working at the hotel about children and hope.  He is the father of two children.  He has very strong and high hopes for his two children and sees education as a very important aspect of this.  Every month he and his wife put a not so small percentage of their total earnings into their children's education.  he said that it is sometimes not easy but they are always trying to do the best they can.  There are very many costs.  Education is not free.  He said that he is fortunate that his children are good students because it is very difficult if a child has learning problems.  "No one wants to talk about this," he said.  it seems that if someone's child is having some sort of problem, it is difficult for the parents to reach out to seek help.

I asked about families who want to keep their children at home working in family businesses.  He said that this is true, but it is not usually because parents do not trust education or see education as any sort of threat to having their children continuing to work with them in the family business - it was more that there are sometimes no possibilities to have the children attend school.  Maybe there is not enough money or support, and it is a vicious cycle of having to make the money for the child to attend school but needing the child to help with the business to make the money, which leaves very little time then for the child to actually attend school.  "Drop-outs" in this context might be thought of as children who are "recalled" to the family business in order to try making more money to get the child back into school.  This man I was speaking to said that most parents understand the value of education and hope for their children's best possibilities and want to give their children the best education possible, and see the value for instance of children learning math and English to bring this competence back into the family business, but many times there is just not the possibility to allow for the child's attendance.