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I have been thinking about the visit I have made a few days ago to a very remote village of my country and the kind of interaction I had with them. This was a wonderful reminiscence in my life, and it in fact vitalized me, and gave the courage to face difficulty that comes in my way. Those villagers I have came across lived difficultly for they had to walk miles and miles just fetch a sack of salt and kerosene they use for lamps, for there is no electrification, no TV, and even a radio is a great entertainer and luxury. Owning a radio is a matter of prestige in that part.
Funnily enough, I went to a really great lecture just last week by an anthropologist who lived for over a year in a very rural village in Russia, in a place very similar to what you just described. There was no running water, a couple people had TVs (but only got two state-run stations), and no machinery for their farms. A field it would take a US farmer maybe a day to hay took them a month and each family's entire efforts went to supporting a single cow which gave them basically everything they needed to survive, but nothing beyond.