It's simple. You pretty much answered your own question by asking it.
When you're surrounded by poverty and mortality you're naturally going to value life far more than the guy who can walk down the street and buy a gallon of milk for a buck.
People "here" (assuming some Western nation) are well off and taken care of. We've got access to good medicine and we scrape enough uneaten food off of our plates every year to feed all of freakin' Africa. And you wonder why we value life less? C'mon.
We're spoiled as sh*t. It's amazing really.