Passport Envy

This morning I had the fun (read: boring) task of going to the US Embassy to meet one of our groups and stay with them while they went through the visa interview process. I have done this twice before and don't particularly like going simply because it basically means sitting/standing around for a few hours while 40 people go through the visa application process. But, sometimes it is necessary for me to go for customer service reasons and today was one of those days.
It is so odd going to the Embassy, at least in the visa application section, because everyone looks at me with what can only be described as envy. They want what I have, namely a US passport.
I had no idea until I came here just how easy we have it as Americans when it comes to traveling. Indians, for example, need a visa to travel everywhere - except Hong Kong I think. The visa applications go from 4 pages to 10 pages depending on the destinations, and they need to provide financial documentation going back years and years, and then they have to come to the Embassy to be interviewed by an officer at which point in time they could very likely be rejected. Of course the reason why they have to go through this mess is that there is pretty big problem with Indians immigrating illegally. We have caught quite a few people in the lie ourselves, one girl brought a fake father; actually an uncle who had gotten a fake drivers license to pretend to be her father because her father is living illegally in the US.
As you see people either get their visas...or not...the look on their faces is the equivalent of either Christmas morning-type happiness...or devastation. Once someone has one visa then they will likely get approved for any other visa they apply for and now their chances of studying abroad or working abroad just went through the roof.
Our entire group was approved and as we were waiting for everyone to finish the students asked if they could see my passport. I showed them and they were fascinated by it, they looked at every page and every stamp and held it like it was some type of treasure. It was slightly bizarre and I felt a little guilty at how easy so many aspects of my life are just because of the luck of where I was born.
Of course I do now need to begin the renewal process for my visa to keep working here but that process is more of an annoyance than a stress.