it's sort of like camping...

so i just spent a month in the village have-kofe (pronounced ha-vay - co-pay) with my friend denis. his family graciously invited me into their lives and home, and it was a FABULOUS experience.
have-kope is in the "no man's land" between ghana and togo, but the kids go to school on the togo side, so everyone speaks ewe and french. lucky for me, i am not at all fluent in french. :)
i had my own room in the house, which was constructed from mud walls about 8 inches thick and a tin roof. (denis claims you can shoot a bullet at the wall and it won't go through, but i'm not willing to test the theory...) the shower was a stall built out of some cinder blocks and palm leaves...you carry in your own bucket. and the toilet was a hole in the ground outside of town. the kitchen was in the common area outside all the rooms. needless to say, there was not electricity, running water, cell phone coverage, etc...
to get to the village you have to take a car to the village ketsi-nkwanta, then walk two and a half miles. carrying all your stuff. up and down mountains. and cross a river--over a downed tree. needless to say, this place was remote.
i had a great time really, actually doing nothing. but it got me thinking...
what if you have no opportunity in life to "do something meaningful," as we would term meaningful-great job, teach a child to read, make lots of money, tell people about Jesus... anything we would term as "important." if you can't do any of this because your daily life is focused on survival, what is the meaning of life?
should our lives, those of us who are much more privileged, mean something "more?" something different? the same?
does God expect us to do "more?"