One Weeks Worth of Food

One Week's Worth of Food Around Our Planet

This is something I came across on a friend's blog, I also found it at the link above. Interesting - and so many implications. Thoughts??? The pictures say it all:

Japan: The Ukita family of Kodaira City Food expenditure for one week: 37,699 Yen or $317.25

Italy: The Manzo family of Sicily Food expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11 Favorite foods: fish, pasta with ragu, hot dogs, frozen fish sticks

Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07

United States: The Revis family of North Carolina Food expenditure for one week: $341.98 Favorite foods: spaghetti, potatoes, sesame chicken

Mexico: The Casales family of Cuernavaca Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09 Favorite foods: pizza, crab, pasta, chicken

Poland: The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27 Family recipe: Pig's knuckles with carrots, celery and parsnips

Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53 Family recipe: Okra and mutton

Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo Food expenditure for one week : $31.55 Family recipe : Potato soup with cabbage

Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village Food expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03 Family recipe: Mushroom, cheese and pork

Kuwait: The Al Haggan family of Kuwait City Food expenditure for one week: 63.63 dinar or $221.45
Family recipe: Chicken biryani with basmati rice

China: The Dong family of Beijing Food expenditure for one week: 1,233.76 Yuan or $155.06
Favorite foods: fried shredded pork with sweet and sour sauce

United States: The Caven family of California Food expenditure for one week: $159.18
Favorite foods: beef stew, berry yogurt sundae, clam chowder, ice cream

Mongolia: The Batsuuri family of Ulaanbaatar Food expenditure for one week: 41,985.85 togrogs or $40.02 Family recipe: Mutton dumplings

Great Britain: The Bainton family of Cllingbourne Ducis Food expenditure for one week: 155.54 British Pounds or $253.15 Favorite foods: avocado, mayonnaise sandwich, prawn cocktail, chocolate fudge cake with cream

Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23 Favorite foods: soup with fresh sheep meat

Slowing Down

Well, I’m back again. Its been a while since I told you about outreach here in the L.A. area. A lot went on in the last couple of months (like trips to Nepal with my dad) that have slowed down my involvement with outreach – but I’m back at it now.
It has been pretty slow lately, the last time I was in Compton (two or three weeks ago) it was really strange. There were not many girls out (but lots of cops) and the girls I did run into were not real talkative. Even D**** who is usually real friendly with me and we tend to have good conversations was pretty standoffish.
So, last night it was Laurie, Daryl and myself. We met at 2am at the office to build bags. We stopped at the 7-11 first to get some of that blueberry coffee though – I am really starting to love that stuff! When we were there we saw a couple of cops and asked them about the activity they’ve seen in Hollywood lately. They said its been pretty dead and directed us to the transvestite area (but told us we’d find girls there…not so). Then we headed to the office and made up some lovely valentines bags.
We headed off and spent some time driving up and down the strip trying to feel out the situation in Hollywood. It was pretty dead so we headed to the Valley. When we first got there we saw S*** right away. When we pulled over to talk with her she was bolting as fast as she could to hide behind a large van. It seemed to us she was trying to get away from this large SUV that had started to pull down the road, but when we talked with her she told us she was running from the cops (we didn’t see any anywhere close to there so I don’t know what she thought she had seen). She wasn’t really interested in talking much but thanked us for the bag and assured us she prayed each night before heading out to the street and she would be careful. We drove around for a while longer but it was pretty dead so we headed back to Hollywood.
We drove around there for a while longer and still didn’t see anyone so we deiced to call it a night. On our way back to the office we passed another girl on a street corner that was all hopped up on something. She was not doing well. She fell off the sidewalk onto the street as we drove past and then just started stumbling down the middle of the street as she tried to flag down different cars. We made the loop a couple of times to try and meet up with her and then talk with her but she was so far gone and stumbling in every direction we knew nothing we said to her would be remembered.
So things have been pretty low-key or dead around here as of late. That doesn’t mean things are getting better, it just means the pimps are moving the girls around. I am sure they’ve been taking lots of them to Vegas. They can also use other means (newspapers, pamphlets, telephone) to get the girls out. Laurie says this is not completely unusual for this time of year. Between November and February each year it tends to slow down because things can get really charged during political elections so the cops tend to really crack down even more.
So, we’ll see. We’ll just keep getting out there.

The Great Need

Scotty Brown - the founder of Peak Performance, 212 Degrees, had some great thoughts on Nepal and the great need there - I thought they were worth sharing with you all. He just spent the month of January in Nepal. Part of the time was with Peak Performance taking a group of students trekking in the Annapurna Region of the Himalayans. After the team left he wrapped up for a bit on his own.

He says,
"This past week i went to a couple homes of the kids i have been working with here in the streets at night. Some are begging for food, rice for their family and some just want to see if they can get you to buy them a candy bar. But two in particular are begging to have someone pay for them to go to school!! So i have gone and met with the families of these kids only to find that they both live in houses that are maybe 12×12 with 6 kids and one parent. Both families are without dads. One died of a heart attack, the other had a drinking problem and ran away with another woman. Neither mom has any sort of education and cannot afford to send all the kids to school on the money that she makes doing laundry by hand for a local hotel. i brought them enough rice for several weeks and will meet with the principal of the school to see about paying the $15 a month it would take to get them through this next semester. My struggle comes with the fact that once again i find myself meeting a need, but doing very little to eliminate a need. How can i effectively share the love of Jesus Christ and the hope that i know comes from having a relationship with Him to someone who cannot even afford enough rice to feed her children. i do believe that i was the hands of Jesus when i came and left the rice with them family, and i could tell from the smiles and the conversations with the mothers each day that i came that they were appreciative. i just hope beyond hope that they know that Jesus wants to give them so much more. This is the story of soooo many kids. i guess i am working through some of my own “guilt” and need to remind myself of the same truth that i shared with my team. God will complete what we can’t, He knew i was leaving and is bigger than me. He will continue to do the work here in Nepal long after i am gone."

Powerful words - and very true ones. Sometimes the need seems so great - and we feel powerless to do anything about it. Thanks for the encouragement, Scotty. And thanks for introducing me to Nepal and growing the passion in my heart that I have for it. I Love You.

SOLD

I recently finished the book “Sold” by Patricia McCormick. It is a novel told from the viewpoint of a young thirteen year old girl Lakishma that has been sold into sex-trafficking. She is from a small village in Nepal and is taken across the boarder into India. McCormick has clearly done some good research because she comes up with some spot-on illustrations and tells this very difficult story in a captivating way. I want to give you just a couple excerpts:
**These have some graphic content**

[p. 15]
EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW

Before today, Ama says, you could run as free as a leaf in the wind.

Now, she says, you must carry yourself with modesty, bow your head in the presence of men, and cover yourself with your shawl.

Never look a man in the eye.
Never allow yourself to be alone with a man who is not family.
And never look at growing pumpkins or cucumbers when you are bleeding.
Otherwise they will rot.

Once you are married, she says, you must eat your meal only after your husband has had his fill. Then you may have what remains.

If he burps at the end of the meal, it is a sign that you have pleased him.

If he turns to you in the night, you must give yourself to him, in the hopes that you will beat him a son.

If you have a son, feed him at your breast until he is four.

If you have a daughter, feed her at your breast for just a season, so that your blood will start again and you can try once more to bear a son.

If your husband asks you to wash his feet, you must do as he says, then put a bit of the water in your mouth.

I ask Ama why. “Why,” I say, “must women suffer so?”

“This has always been our fate,” she says.
“Simply to endure,” she says, “is to triumph.”

[p.120]
LUCKY TO BE WITH HABIB

A man with lips like a fish comes into my room and says, “You’re lucky to be with Habib.” He is squeezing my breast with his hand, like someone shopping for a melon. I try to push him away, but my arm, stone-heavy from the drugged lassi, doesn’t move.

“You’re lucky,” he says, “that Habib is your first one.”

I close my eyes. The room pitches this way and that.

“You can tell the others that it was Habib,” he says.

I open my eyes, watch him squeeze my other breast, and wonder: Who is this Habib he keeps talking about?

“If this is really your first time,” he says. “Old Mumtaz is a tricky one.”
He unbuckles his belt. “Once before, she sold Habib used goods.

The fish-lips man removes my dress.
I wait for myself to protest. But nothing happens.

“Habib,” he says. “Habib is good with the ladies.”

The he is on top of me, and something hot and insistent is between my legs.
He grunts and struggles, trying to fit himself inside me.

With a sudden thrust I am torn in two.
“Oh, yes,” he says, panting. “Habib is good in bed.”

I hear, coming from a distance, a steady thud,
thud,
thud,
and register that this is the sound of a headboard hitting a wall.

After a while,
I don’t know how long,
another sound interrupts the rhythmic thud of the headboard.
I know this noise from somewhere.
I work very hard to make it out.

Finally, I identify it.
It is the muffled sound of sobbing.

Habib rolls off me.

Then I understand: I was the person crying.

Escaping El Salvador's sex traffickers

The BBC put out a report that spoke on trafficking around Central America is endemic and often women and children are forced into prostitution.

But now decisive international collaboration is beginning to have an impact.

Rafaela is godmother to Milagros and has looked after her since her mother died as a child, treating her as she would a daughter.

When Milagros told her godmother about a job offer in a casino in El Salvador, Rafaela was immediately suspicious.

"I told her to be careful," she remembers, "but when she got a contract it all seemed OK.

"Her salary was going to be $1,000 a month - nearly 10 times her salary here in Nicaragua. And they said they would pay for her food and accommodation for the first two months too."

Leaving her baby with Rafaela in Managua, Milagros set off for El Salvador's capital, San Salvador.

Duped

As a teenage single parent, she dreamed of owning her own home. But in Nicaragua - one of the poorest countries in the region - this would be impossible.

Attracted by El Salvador's dollar economy, she thought she would be able to save money.

But Milagros had been duped. In San Salvador she was held prisoner in a brothel by men with guns.

Milagros called Rafaela secretly and told her she had been kidnapped. Rafaela heard the sound of gunshots before the line went dead.

For a moment, Rafaela thought she might have been killed, but then Milagros called again.

"I told her to try and remember any landmark - a mango tree or a large building - anything that might identify where she was being held," she remembers.

Milagros was beaten when she was discovered on the phone a second time. But then one of her guards took pity on her and let her call home a third time.

Armed with the information she needed, Rafaela phoned the police in Nicaragua who contacted El Salvador's trafficking unit:

"In a matter of seconds, the police in El Salvador went in and rescued her.

"When they got back to the police station, the sergeant called me. He was very happy and so was I. He said Milagros was in a terrible state, but - she was alive."

Stigma

San Salvador is a noisy, busy city overlooked by a spectacular volcano. The streets are crowded with bars, in many sex is for sale.

I accompanied Sgt Jose Noe Ayala on a drive around the city to see the places where police have discovered trafficked women and children.

In one of the upmarket areas of the city, he pointed out a non-descript building, this was where Milagros was held.

"We rescued four girls that day," he tells me.

"Three were teenagers under the age of 18, all Salvadorians. And then there was Milagros, from Nicaragua."

After she was rescued, Milagros tried to commit suicide twice. Each time she first called Rafaela to ask for forgiveness and to say goodbye.

"She was feeling guilty. And responsible for everything that had happened to her," Rafaela says.

"I told her, there is no need to feel guilty. You have not done anything wrong."

There is a stigma attached to being trafficked because of the sexual nature of the crime.

Speaking out

This is the first time Rafaela has told Milagros's story. She wants the world to know what happened to her god-daughter.

"I am speaking out to you to say to any single mother or any adolescent, 'If you are offered a good job, do not be dazzled by the high salaries, because the price you pay is too heavy'," she says.

"We do not always have the courage to talk about trafficking, but we must be open about these things so this story is not repeated in other families."

After her rescue, Milagros was looked after in a new refuge for victims of trafficking in San Salvador. It is the only one of its kind in the region.

She received psychological support and also helped the police build their case against the group who trafficked her before being sent back to Nicaragua.

Rafaela will never forget the day Milagros returned.

"She was lovely, my little girl, but destroyed by her experience," she says.

Since returning, Milagros has stayed outside Managua, hidden somewhere the traffickers will not find her.

Now she is preparing to return to El Salvador to testify against her captors. Rafaela says Milagros is terrified.

"I know it is going to be very difficult for her," she says, "but I feel it is something that will help her get over what happened."

There have been few convictions for trafficking in Central America but Rafaela knows that this will only change if there is more cross-border co-operation between institutions, governments, and those who, like Milagros, became victims of the traffickers.