What I am taking away

After reading "The Motorcycle Diaries" by Ernesto Guevara, my eyes have been open to a world that I had not witnessed before. Prior to opening to the first chapter I had not heard of Che Guevara and how he was a main influence in the Castro regime. When I started reading I only thought of Che as a young medical student eager to travel throughout South America, however I quickly learned that he's much more than that, he's a caring man who wants to better the world in any way he can. In his personal journal he wrote about all the injustice and inequalities he saw on his journey. On one incident he writes about how capitalism has poisoned South America after touring a coal mine in Chile. In the coal mine he witnessed all the workers were native citizens while an American company exploited them with minimal pay, poor working conditions, and excessively hard work. This annoyed Che and  made him want to end the touring there to continue his journey. Progressing in his journey Che saw other injustices such as mistreated elderly or abused power, despite the negative events Che tried his best to help anyone he could. He especially wanted to visit a leper colony to help those who had been quarantined from normal society. When Che finally got his wish he spent as much time as he could with the people of the colony talking to them person-to-person with out any protective mask, clothing, or even gloves when shaking hands. He really wanted to make them feel like human beings because the citizens of the colony were kept on a regular basis in crummy shacks with other sick. When they saw the non-sick they were usually covered head to toe in anti-bacterial suits. This made me realize that Che didn't care if they were sick only that they were human. This is a concept that stood with him into his years as a guerrilla leader, he did the things he did in order to equalize all humans not to gain power and rule the world. This is what iv'e taken away from reading "The Motorcycle Diaries", to see past all in-differences like Che, to see a human the same as me.