With every day that passes, the reality of our economic situation becomes more and more entrenched in the public psyche. No, this is not a dream. Yes, you are going to have to sacrifice. No, it is not going to get better any time soon. In fact, it is going to get much, much worse before it gets better.

Right now it's a beautiful day in Houston. The sun is shining, the birds are putting on a free concerto in my front yard, a couple plays tennis across the street, a middle aged woman walks her dogs, one big, one small, and the world, from the vantage point of my family's front porch, is at total peace.

Then a melange of images flashes through my mind. The Bosnian kid from Travnik talking about his parents' death in Sarajevo during the war. The 500 billion dinar note I have taped in my journal, a gift from Dragana, just a small relic from the period of hyperinflation in Serbia taking place when Mookie's parents were killed. The grimaced expression on a poor Tanzanian farmer's face as he pushes a cheap Chinese bicycle up an unpaved hill, eight million pounds of whatever crop he grows loaded onto the back. The sadness in my student Rosie's eyes as we wait together outside of the AIDS clinic in Arusha, so that she can get her monthly check up for a disease that even a six-year-old African child knows has no cure.

If there's anything my experiences of the past two years has prepared me for, it's this. Times will get tough; we will survive. That's what human beings do.