Grinding Poverty

[cincibuck]

One of my tasks in the reserves was to put together the "nation book" for Haiti should the US Army need to undertake operations there. The book contained a brief history of Haiti, geological/meteorological facts, statistics, economics, a political/military/police/education/social who's who, etc. etc.

While my team and I worked on the book the phrase that kept coming up was "grinding poverty." If we read it once, we read it thousands of times, from UN documents, to the reports of historians, to social commentaries. What distinguished "grinding poverty" from "poverty?" Clearly there was something because the people who recorded the life of Haiti saw the poverty there as something distinctly different from poverty as the rest of the world understands the term. We finally settled on this fact from UNESCO: "One third of the diet of the average Haitian child is dirt. Dirt and small stones fill a hungry stomach and give the person a sense that they are full."

Please consider giving to Haitian Relief. If not through the International Red Cross, then through your church or other agency you trust.

Cincibuck

 

[Gatorubet]

[BestHaitianeye] Why, when I was a boy, we didn't have small stones and dirt. Just rocks. Big, BIG rocks. We had to spit on them and force them into our mouths with crowbars, then chew them up and grind them down to MAKE the dirt and small stones you're so lucky to find on the ground and eat....[/BestHaitianeye]


I love pets. I love the SPCA. I love trees, and the National Wildlife Federation. I love Ducks Unlimited. I love my church, and the new remodeling of the Fellowship Hall they talk about. But screw them all - I'm giving all of my charitable cash to Haiti this year. The rest of them will do fine for a year, but in Haiti kids are dying in our own backyard.

 

[MaliBuckeye]

[BestHaitianeye] Why, when I was a boy, we didn't have small stones and dirt. Just rocks. Big, BIG rocks. We had to spit on them and force them into our mouths with crowbars, then chew them up and grind them down to MAKE the dirt and small stones you're so lucky find on the ground and eat....[/BestHaitianeye]

For the life of me all I could think of reading this was this sketch: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13JK5kChbRw"]Four Yorkshiremen by Monty Python[/ame].