Mountains Beyond Mountains Response Q #5

I believe that because Farmer grew up in poverty he was able to dedicate his life to working with Haitians because from an early age he learned how to live a low maintenance lifestyle.  Farmer moved several times as a child and spent time living in a bus, tent and boat.  Living in those undesirable places allowed him to easily get accustomed to living in a small shack in Haiti.  On page 54 Kidder describes Farmer's ability to "sleep in a dentist's chair, as he did at night for most of one summer in a clinic in Haiti, and consider it improvement over other places he had slept". Also, Farmer tells Kidder that "I never had a sense of a hometown.  It was, 'This is my campground.'" (54).  I think that Farmer's lack of an attachment to a home in the United States made it easier for him to move to Haiti because in a sense he was not leaving anything behind.  Throughout Mountains Beyond Mountains Farmer expresses his belief that he is more of a global citizen than an American.  He focuses more on the principle that people are the same and he does not care about race or ethnicity.  He simply wants to help whoever is in need. His beliefs can be attributed to his work with Haitian farmers when as a child he was forced to pick citrus with them and told his father "But, Dad, white people don't pick citrus" only to be told "Yeah, I'll give you white people" (51).  This lesson really grounded Farmer.  Had it not been for these experiences, Paul Farmer might have become a more "conventional" doctor practicing in the United States.