ABC Nightline reports from a remote village in Amazon

If you are remotely interested in other parts of the world and how other people live, I hope you watched this episode of Nightline (too bad the video is not online, but you can see photos and story at: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=5850949&page=1).

It was about a remote village in the Amazon basin in Brazil, and how these people live happily with so little based on their principle of "take only what you need" (vs. the "take all you want" mentality of modern life). There were many amazing things mentioned about these people's lives, what they eat, how they work, and how simple their daily loves are with so little (doesn't mean they don't work - men fish, and women dig, carry, and grind yucca roots to make food in addition to daily chores), not to mention how much they laugh. Pretty much everything they use is made of natural elements, and they wear and use very little, never more than what they need. In my opinion, there were many similarities with the daily lives and principles of how Native Americans lived on this side of the continent, and how it all changed after the arrival of the Europeans. Surprisingly, the producers referred to these people as an Indian tribe, which should have been indigenous or native people, but I still appreciate the effort to bring this remote village to our attention... This tribe's lifestyle is being threatened by the impact and growth of modern civilization, and especially the plans for a new dam (reminder, these people eat only fish and yucca, and the dam will stop the flow of the fish) They also showed another tribe where only 6 members are left and after that their language and customs will be extinct as the current members are past child-bearing age.

I am not sure about the producer's claim that this was the most remote village on earth "never touched by civilization" (some tribe members had t-shirts and flip-flops - presumably brought by the 2 members who left to observe the outer world and got this team to the village) but was a very eye-opening documentary in terms of being aware of our world, our past, human values, and especially reminding us how little we need to be happy. After showing the tribe members videos from our world (namely Washington DC, White House, and scenes from the Iraq War - on an IPod screen) one of the tribe members was asked if he'd like to have a more modern life and live a life depicted in the video, he answered that he was perfectly happy with what we had and had no desire for those things. So interesting to see when we all keep wanting more and more of those, the ones who have none were not interested in any of it at all, and they definitely had more laughter in their lives... I applaud Dan Harris for chasing this story and telling it with such passion and awe, I felt as if I was going through the jungle with them and meeting these people myself. I only wish there were more real stories on TV putting real perspective in our lives...