Challenge Update

(Emily's Voice)

I realized today that we haven't written about how our challenge is going and whether or not we have been sticking to the rules. So, let me update you a little bit.

Most of the rules were put in place to allow us to have some freedom as we go about our daily lives and so it hasn't really been that hard to follow them! We have both cheated - Matt with buying a book about basketball and me buying a pair of running tights in anticipation of the upcoming running season! But, Matt wanted to add a rule about spending money on sports and sport-related things (see post about dodgeball purchase) and so we have tried to justify these purchases.

About that: before Matt and I even started to think about this challenge, I would always get him to ask me to justify my purchases. I told him that I was only allowed to buy something if I could give him 3 reasons why I needed it - and they had to be 3 good reasons, not just "it's cute, I look great in it, and it's only $20." These are not good reasons. I found this to be an extremely effective tool to curb my shopping for unnecessary items (but it only really worked if Matt was with me during the purchasing)! I often could only come up with 1 good reason to buy something, and a lot of the time I couldn't come up with any reasons. Geez, I'm starting to make myself sound like I have a problem (shop-a-holic, much?).

On the bright side, we watched a show called "Hoarders" last night and it made me feel really good about how much I buy (which is not much) and what I am willing to part with. If you feel like grossing yourself out just look for it on youtube.

Part of our challenge has also been to raise awareness to our friends and family about global poverty and what we can all do to help (hence this blog). I think in this we have been very successful. This past Christmas we asked our family to take the money they would have spent on gifts and give it to the WFP. In my family there is a lot of resistance to this idea, just because gift-giving has always been such a huge part of our tradition. But, this year, they fulfilled our request and gave their money away (thanks again everyone)! This also opened up many opportunities for discussion, as well as the receipt of an interesting little book called "Scroogenomics," which touches on why we should not give gifts at Christmas.

Part of our success has also been in the completion of our "fistula fund." A few days ago I received the certificate pictured above in the mail. It now lives on our fridge and is a daily reminder of how a little money put in the right places can do a lot of good.

So, in short, the challenge has been going very well and we are having little successes every day. We don't feel like we are lacking ANYTHING, and we are going to be able to give the WFP a significant amount by the end of this year. Now, how am I going to justify buying the rats each a torture ball to roll around in?

ATTENTION ATTENTION ATTENTION!!!!

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is matching donations made to UNICEF Canada for the Haiti relief efforts!

Give now to UNICEF and your donation will double!

Just click on link shown on side bar to the right and help the people of Haiti in this great time of need.

What the World Eats

(Emily's Voice)

A very wise woman recommended that I check out a book called "Hungry Planet: What the World Eats." It is a photographic journey around the world, looking at what an average family eats in one week. There are also photos of typical grocery stores/markets that these people shop at. I went online to see if I could find this book somewhere and I found that some of the photos have been published on the TIME website (www.time.com).

Check it out, you will be amazed (just click on the link below)!

What the World Eats, Part I

These pictures really illustrate the cultural food differences of people on the planet. Not only is the food different but the cost is incredibly revealing of the economic times that we live in. The cost of a week's worth of food for a family living in a refugee camp in Chad costs $1.23 and looks like it mostly consists of grains. Meanwhile, a family living in North Carolina spends $342 on a week's worth of food, which looks like it mostly consists of junk. I really enjoyed looking at these pictures and comparing the amount of fresh food that people either choose to buy (or not buy) or have available to them. In a place like North Carolina, people have access to a wide range of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, grains, etc. And yet the only fresh foods (and by fresh I mean not processed beyond recognition - like the mushrooms on the pizza don't count) we see displayed for the North Carolinian family's week are grapes, tomatoes, salad in a bag, vacuum-sealed meat, and milk in a jug. Ugh. How can a family stay healthy eating so much trash?

Now, from these pictures, it looks as though the North Carolinians aren't the only ones who buy a lot of processed food and drink a lot of pop. Look at the picture of the family from Mexico, where 12 Coca Cola bottles are on display for 4 people's consumption (that is assuming the small child in the arms of his Dad doesn't drink it yet) for one week. And we wonder why Type 2 Diabetes is rampant!

On a different note - I told my coworkers today about this book and how incredible it is. I made the statement that it was so interesting to look at how different cultures eat different foods (something that we've all known but is so poignant to see in a visual comparison between nations). My supervisor, who always has an opinion and has the uncanny ability to retain random knowledge, agreed that food is a cultural vehicle. He told me a story about a place where all the people were starving and the aid organizations sent them huge quantities of wheat. These people lived in an area where they didn't grow wheat or know how to process it. So, they had a giant warehouse filled with food and yet they were starving. He continued to say that it would be like if there was some disaster here and we were all left for starving and the UN World Food Programme sent us truckloads of jellyfish. Do you know how to eat a jellyfish? And it is so true! What would we do? But, if those trucks were sent to a community in, say, northern Japan, they would be whipping up some fried jellyfish served over rice!

Disaster in Haiti

(Emily's Voice)

A huge earthquake has rocked the island of Haiti leaving thousands feared dead and many thousands more injured. The World Food Program has mobilized to assist with this emergency by providing food assistance for the thousands of people left homeless and hungry after this disaster.

"WFP is asking the international community for urgent help to assist Haiti, a country where 1.8 million people were already food insecure before the earthquake and it is also the poorest country in the Western hemisphere." - Haiti: WFP Mobilises To Bring Food Relief After Devastating Quake, www.wfp.org

Interested in donating to provide relief? Copy and paste this link into your browser window https://www.wfp.org/donate/haiti

Merry Christmas to us!

(Emily's voice)

For Christmas this year I received the knowledge that a woman somewhere in the far east will have corrective surgery for her obstetric fistula. And Matt is getting the same. We decided to finish off the fistula fund, splitting the remaining amount between us, and that is our gift to each other.

While reading the Fistula Foundation's website (http://www.fistualfoundation.org)I found a link to some articles about the tumultuous times that women are enduring in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I learned that a lot of the fistulas women are suffering from are actually the result of rape, as opposed to complications in giving birth. Rape, as it turns out, is an excellent tool in ensuring dominance over communities and showing force. It is the worst kind of terrorism. Reading the articles and watching the video posted on their website brought tears to my eyes and made me feel sick to my stomach. I can't believe that there are such atrocities going on in the world. It is enough to break your heart.

I have included the video from CBS's 60 Minutes, and I must warn, there are some very disturbing images shown and stories told during this segment.

PROCEED WITH CAUTION - SOME IMAGES/STORIES MAY BE DISTURBING TO YOU.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Emily's Guide to Holiday Shopping

It’s the time of year when we pull out our snowman shaped cookie cutters and we blow the dust off of the box of tree decorations. We search through our recipe boxes to find the ingredients for those disgusting, yet delicious, squares full of coloured marshmallows. We dream of days off from work and spending time with our families.

(Sound effect: A record coming to an abrupt stop.)

Okay, let’s face the reality of Christmas. It’s the time of year when most people are thinking about buying gifts and spending ridiculous amounts of money on…….

CRAP.

That’s right. Crap. There is so much of it in the stores today, available at a low cost, which is totally and utterly useless. Unfortunately, the low cost to you means that there are high costs somewhere else; costs to our environment and to the lives of the people who are manufacturing this stuff (see Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff – link below).

Most people are feeling pretty stressed out right about now, with Christmas just a week around the corner. And the root of their stress seems to be this notion that they have to buy the biggest, the best, the most expensive, the most popular CRAP for their children, spouses, parents, friends, etc. What happened to Christmas being about giving selflessly to others, doing good deeds, spending time with family? Where along the way did we lose sight of these ideals? When did Christmas become such a blatant excuse for over-consumption (and I’m not talking about eating too much chocolate, for that I am definitely guilty).

This time of year I really enjoy going into Thunder Bay’s largest grocery store – The Superstore. I feel removed from all of this holiday stress and so I enjoy walking around watching people hurry to and fro, listening to people argue about which egg nog they should buy or how that old biddy just cut the line and just generally being miserable. It is rather entertaining for the voyeur side of my personality. But it also makes me sad. It makes me sad that so many people have been suckered into the idea that Christmas is about giving gifts that give instant gratification, and will probably just end up in the landfill next fall.

Skip all the stress this year and do something good for your pocketbook, the environment, the world’s poor and yourself.

Don’t buy crap.

Make something homemade; your family can’t throw that away without feeling some intense guilt.

Give edible gifts; who doesn’t want pretzels with Hershey kisses melted on them and an M&M placed on top? It’s like a little gift in your mouth.

Give a donation to your favourite charity with the money you would have spent on a gift. I recommend a Gift of Hope from the World Food Program. (http://gifts.wfp.org/)

My coworker reminded me last week that Christmas is all about peace and love. I would love to be able to witness a world of people who extend that thinking into the 365 days of the year, not just the 2 weeks at Christmas. But, for now, that will have to do. Let’s start changing the way people think about Christmas.

Peace and Love,
Emily
(I guess all of my relatives who read this know what they’re getting for Christmas this year!)

Guilt

(Emily's Voice)

I haven't written on the blog lately because I have been trying to find an easy way to break the news. I've decided that the best way is to just be truthful and completely blunt.

We have bought a new car.

Obviously this purchase has spurred a few feelings of guilt, mostly on my part. We are excellent at providing justifications for our purchase, but still it is hard to rationalize spending upwards of $20000 on something that seems like a luxury (especially in comparison to our beater car we were driving).

Besides this giant purchase, our challenge has been going quite well. We have been able to adhere to the rules very well and we don't feel like we are suffering at all. The upcoming Christmas season may pose us our greatest challenge, with gift-giving being the main theme. Stay tuned for our entry on giving at Christmas....