Written with both humor and poignancy, the narrator details the challenges, and frustration of an American working with the privileged few in the Third World, as well as his association with the peasant class, which created his contempt for their leaders, but a deep affection for the subjugated people forced by birth into a world of poverty and indifference. "If I could convince others to read between these lines, they would find most of their problems are minor. In that event, then perhaps, like me, they will accept the pictures of a decaying world and the slaughter of the innocents as real and conclude living is better than simply existing. If they do, they will take the opportunity to make the best of the few short moments they have."