Thursday, August 28, 2008

PHOTOS

Hey people,

I recently returned from a two-week vacation in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The photos are posted under the link "Vacation" on the right sidebar. Enjoy:)

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

The story of a young girl.

You have probably seen an image of the young girl on your television screen at some point. The well-dressed, neatly groomed man that appeared next to her told you little more about the child’s situation than her name and that she needs your help. The rest of her story you would simply have to imagine, drawing clues only from the picture on the TV screen in front of you: the bare feet, filthy clothes, the unmistakable look of despair on her small, weathered face. She holds a petite tattered teddy bear that appears to have been rescued from a landfill—perhaps the one you see sprawling out across the land that lies beyond her. An overwhelming number of buzzing flies occupy the space around her, and based on a quick glance at her arms, shoulders, and legs, it is clear that this child is severely malnourished.

The image is striking, to be sure, and is meant to invoke any number of intense emotions—sadness, astonishment, heartache, anger, disbelief—that will motivate you, the viewer, to contribute a small amount of money to help improve the life of this one child and those of the many other children who live each day in similarly-deplorable conditions. But within your life of fortune and general luxury, you may have never actually come face-to-face with a reality as shocking as the one depicted on the screen in front of you, and so such a scene becomes somewhat difficult to believe.

Conditions couldn’t possibly be that bad for a great number of people beyond this little girl and perhaps others that live nearby, you tell yourself. She must be “the worst of the worst”, chosen to be plastered across the TV screen in order to ensure a steady supply of sympathy and donations, right? Human waste and garbage doesn’t really fill all the streets and alleyways of this small town, does it? And there must be little chance that she is actually malnourished—there is so much food in this world!

You are told little more than her name and that she needs your help, and so you simply don’t know the extent of the poverty that this young girl lives in each day. You don’t know her story. If you will imagine that this child lives in a small rural village in Mali, West Africa, however, I will tell you her story.

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The young girl that you have seen on your TV screen is nine years old, and in a country with a death rate of 22 percent for children under the age of 5, you might say that she is lucky to be alive. The environment in which she lives can most simply be described as extremely isolated and inadequate; the resources, few. The small village that she calls home is situated at the edge of the Senegal River, which happens to be the only source of water—for drinking, washing, cooking, bathing, etc.—that the four-hundred-plus inhabitants have access to. The village itself is some sixty kilometers (thirty-seven miles) from the next town—a distance most often traveled, very slowly, in a small cart pulled by an under-weight and over-worked donkey. (The same mode of transportation is used for any items or materials too heavy to balance on the top of one’s head.)

The girl lives with her father, his two wives, and her nine brothers and sisters in three very small round houses made of mud and straw (note: polygamy is both legal and widely-practiced within Muslim society—a man can have up to four wives). Not far from their concession lie two large fields that act as a significant source of food for the large family—just before rainy season each year, the young girl’s father spends nearly ten hours per day plowing the earth with a small tool that fits perfectly in the palm of his hand. (Some seventy-percent of the country’s labor force does the same.) Other than the corn and peanuts that are cultivated on these two plots of land, the girl and her family eat rice or pounded millet (a grain) for lunch and dinner nearly every single day. Fruits and vegetables are extremely limited, as is meat.

Because electricity is not available, many residents of this small village navigate each night with the dim glow of a small flame burning inside a kerosene lantern. Food is cooked outdoors, inside of large caldrons that sit on three large rocks over a small (and extremely energy-inefficient) wood-fueled fire.

In the absence of any type of medical center or hospital, the only health care options available to this girl are natural remedies suggested by a traditional healer, or nothing at all. Malaria, Tuberculosis, and Cholera are a few of the sicknesses that all-too-commonly strike the local population.

A small six-classroom school is located at the edge of the village, but because of the extraordinary amount of work and energy that cooking, cleaning, and caring for five children under the age of six requires, this young girl’s father has decided that she will not be attending school in the upcoming year. Family is more important, and so she will remain at home each day and help her two mothers with chores—the opportunity for education denied.

Just as there is no electricity or clean water in this girl’s village, there too is no sewage or garbage disposal system—yes, the streets and alleyways really are covered with trash and waste. Children and grown men often urinate on the ground wherever they may be when the urge arrives, and the narrow dirt roads throughout town are spotted with puddles of stinking bath water that flows from the latrines of nearby homes. The sight of emaciated animals rummaging through piles of garbage looking for food is a common one.

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So that is the young girl’s story. If it ended with her and the others in her small village, then we would probably all feel pretty comfortable with the way the world currently works. But it doesn’t, and so we just can’t.

The story told above—of the young child you once saw on your TV screen—is similar, in many ways, to the stories of some three billion people on this earth. Many have dark skin. Many live in Africa or Asia. Many are living every day in conditions so deplorable they are difficult to believe. Believe it, and be upset about it.

If the well-groomed elderly man has already convinced you to donate money, I suggest you continue to do so. But beyond that, I encourage you to read books, watch documentaries, pick through the news, and put some sort of significant effort towards gaining an accurate image of the way the “other” half of the world lives. Learn about the mechanisms, policies, and government leaders that are keeping poor countries locked in poverty. Visit these places to gain the valuable insights that no other experience will offer. Take a step outside of the comforts of your own world and familiarize yourself with the very discomforting reality of another—one that you may know very little about, and which half of the world’s population knows far too well.

(Note: when I first arrived in Mali and began to witness and experience the many inadequacies and struggles that exist in everyday life in this country, I was shocked and bothered. After spending quite some time here, however, I must say that those same unfortunate realities now bother me much less—because perhaps more powerful than the sense of astonishment that such conditions exist in this world is the feeling of wonder at how the people in such harsh, resource-scarce environments are able to continue to live seemingly-happy lives. It is important to note that life in the developing “third” world is not all about poverty and despair. Life everywhere, after all, is largely characterized by balance and equilibrium. And if there is one thing that humans universally do extremely well, it is that we adapt to the environment in which we find ourselves. And so alongside all the hardships and challenges that are ever-present here in Mali also exist many moments and sources of joy and satisfaction. Children will sing, dance, and play, regardless of the state of the world around them. Men and women will always form friendships, families, and connections that they will celebrate with laughter and love, the best they know how. As humans, we naturally focus on the things that bring joy and happiness—I have done the same thing here in Mali. But in order to remain motivated and not lose touch with my primary reason for being here, I must remind myself that although life throughout the developing world certainly can (and, in fact, always will) contain laughter, happiness, love, and good times, it is still, overwhelmingly, marked by gross inequality, inadequacy, and unacceptable hardship. We should all be extremely bothered by such a fact.)