This week, Peace Corps volunteers across Mali are participating in an initiative to bring understanding and awareness to the reality an estimated 1.1 billion people, or 1 out of every 5 people, face every day...hunger and starvation.
I ask you to think back to a day when you were in class/at work and you were hungry, sweating, thirsty, crashing, tired or hadn't had enough nutrients in your diet that day. Did you perform well that day? Would you say your concentration and focus were stunted? Up to 75% of Malians battle this problem every single day.
Right now, between 50% to 75% of Mali's population are living off of less than $1 a day.
This week is Hunger Awareness Week within the Peace Corps, and September is Hunger Action Month. For our Hunger Awareness Week initiative, Peace Corps is asking its volunteers and their friends and family at home to live off of $1 a day. We realize that it's much easier to live off of $1 a day in Mali than America, so those outside of Mali are asked to live within $5-$10 a day.I suggest more like $5 a day to actually feel the effects of the challenge ($1 a day here is hard). Hunger Awareness Week should last an entire week. More info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=190544464342972#!/event.php?eid=190544464342972
Of course, Peace Corps does not want anyone to starve or compromise their health...so please, health is our priority. We want every participant to try to eat healthfully off of their given amount, which is the challenge.
I'll be blogging every day, describing my experiences living off of $1 a day. Today was the first day of the week - and I went over the $1 limit in order to get some vegetables in my diet.
What I bought today:
Breakfast
--Half loaf of bread: 50 CFAs (~10 cents)
--With one boiled egg: 100 CFAs (~20 cents) and a tiny bit of sauce (included)
Total breakfast: 150 CFAs (~30 cents)
Lunch
I skipped lunch because I knew I wouldn't have enough money. So, I guzzled water all day instead.
**PC asks us to include any American food, soap, snacks, water, etc that we buy. They ask us to include it all, and for vols in the city (like me), they ask us to limit our water and electricity intake. We must also include food people give us.
Around lunch time
--My host mom gave me a small bag of dege (milk powder, millet, sugar, water and maybe some yogurt): 100 CFAs (~20 cents)
--My Patron gave me a bag of Baobab candy (honey, sugar, baobab powder, milk powder): 250 CFAs (~50 cents)
--->If I would have eaten nothing else for the day, that equals one dollar.
But, I was hungry and the point of this week is to try to eat healthfully off of $1 a day.
Dinner
--1 small cucumber: 50 CFAs (~10 cents)
--2 small tomatoes: 100 CFAs (~20 cents)
--1 small onion: 100 CFAs (~20 cents)
--1 Half loaf of bread: 50 CFAs (~10 cents)
Total for dinner: 60 cents
Total for the day: $1.60 (without the food given to me, even though I was hungry: 90 cents)
Tomorrow, I'm going to scale back even more. In the morning, I will eat one egg, without the bread. For dinner, I might get some beans for protein and eat what's left of the salad I made tonight. There are not a lot of nutritional options here, and I definitely can't buy more than 2-3 bites of meat, unless I want to forgo eating for at least one day.
Hunger and poverty
I've worked alongside Malian entrepreneurs and watched the money they take in and out each day. If they don't do accounting, they may work all day and actually lose money. What makes it more difficult is the fact that 75% of this country is illiterate, so it's not that easy to just teach people accounting. Millions of Malians can't even write their own name or the numbers 1-10 (as I saw when I went to Baba's literacy school).
And what about the inequalities associated with a lack of electricity, clean drinking water and nutritional food? There are studies after studies that show that kids' brains actually never perform to their potential if they are even a little malnourished as kids. And what about the diarrhea associated with the lack of clean drinking water? Diarrhea-related dehydration is the leading cause of death in the developing world. And...think...it's all preventable. What about how tired we feel when we're sitting in a dark room? When we're sitting in a dark room, melatonin in our brain tells us it's time to go to sleep. So what is the effect of a lack of lights and electricity on the developing world? Being thirsty, hungry and tired all the time...pretty impossible to study, and thus, ever have a fighting chance.
CFAs (20-40 cents) in profit a day (If that). And if they're illiterate (which many still are, even if they graduated high school), and they don't do accounting, they may never make a profit...and just continue the cycle of never-ending extreme poverty that affects Africa and Asia more than any other places in the world.
I really, really ask you to participate in Hunger Awareness Week with me and other PCVs. Some of my friends - from America to Venezuela, some of my family and their friends - have also agreed to participate. Because even if it's just the tiniest bit of understanding for one week - maybe it will motivate you all to do something. And by something, I don't mean donate money.
Because what I see here is that dumping money on the situation is not fixing the problem. If that was the solution, the billion upon billions of dollars handed to African countries would be fixing a large portion of the world's poverty... And it's not getting better. The people here are used to handouts and are now dependent on foreign aid. Instead, education, understanding and volunteering your time are much better forms of "aid" than blasting out money.
Join us in Hunger Awareness as soon as possible. Join us today. And please let me know how your experience goes! I'll be blogging every day, and I encourage you to tell others too.
Food for thought, Mali:
For most people in the rural areas, who herd family cattle or work small family farms, living conditions are barely subsistence level. Houses are made of wood frames with mud walls and hard earth floors. Their diet consists primarily of cooked cereals and milk, and is essentially meatless. They wear secondhand clothes which originate in Europe and are shipped to local markets. Water comes from wells; cooking is done over wood fires; lighting is from small kerosene wick lamps; and sanitation is provided by pit latrines. Children are unlikely to go to school, and there are no local health centers.
(Mali Poverty and wealth, Information about Poverty and wealth in Mali http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Africa/Mali-POVERTY-AND-WEALTH.html#ixzz1Y3G3zBR1)
To a little more understanding...
People who live off of less than $1 a day are considered living in extreme poverty. There are more than 2 billion children in the world...and more than one billion of them live in poverty. One out of every 2 children are living in poverty in the world...
I ask you to think back to a day when you were in class/at work and you were hungry, sweating, thirsty, crashing, tired or hadn't had enough nutrients in your diet that day. Did you perform well that day? Would you say your concentration and focus were stunted? Up to 75% of Malians battle this problem every single day.
Right now, between 50% to 75% of Mali's population are living off of less than $1 a day.
This week is Hunger Awareness Week within the Peace Corps, and September is Hunger Action Month. For our Hunger Awareness Week initiative, Peace Corps is asking its volunteers and their friends and family at home to live off of $1 a day. We realize that it's much easier to live off of $1 a day in Mali than America, so those outside of Mali are asked to live within $5-$10 a day.I suggest more like $5 a day to actually feel the effects of the challenge ($1 a day here is hard). Hunger Awareness Week should last an entire week. More info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=190544464342972#!/event.php?eid=190544464342972
Of course, Peace Corps does not want anyone to starve or compromise their health...so please, health is our priority. We want every participant to try to eat healthfully off of their given amount, which is the challenge.
I'll be blogging every day, describing my experiences living off of $1 a day. Today was the first day of the week - and I went over the $1 limit in order to get some vegetables in my diet.
What I bought today:
Breakfast
--Half loaf of bread: 50 CFAs (~10 cents)
--With one boiled egg: 100 CFAs (~20 cents) and a tiny bit of sauce (included)
Total breakfast: 150 CFAs (~30 cents)
Lunch
I skipped lunch because I knew I wouldn't have enough money. So, I guzzled water all day instead.
**PC asks us to include any American food, soap, snacks, water, etc that we buy. They ask us to include it all, and for vols in the city (like me), they ask us to limit our water and electricity intake. We must also include food people give us.
Around lunch time
--My host mom gave me a small bag of dege (milk powder, millet, sugar, water and maybe some yogurt): 100 CFAs (~20 cents)
--My Patron gave me a bag of Baobab candy (honey, sugar, baobab powder, milk powder): 250 CFAs (~50 cents)
--->If I would have eaten nothing else for the day, that equals one dollar.
But, I was hungry and the point of this week is to try to eat healthfully off of $1 a day.
Dinner
--1 small cucumber: 50 CFAs (~10 cents)
--2 small tomatoes: 100 CFAs (~20 cents)
--1 small onion: 100 CFAs (~20 cents)
--1 Half loaf of bread: 50 CFAs (~10 cents)
Total for dinner: 60 cents
Total for the day: $1.60 (without the food given to me, even though I was hungry: 90 cents)
Tomorrow, I'm going to scale back even more. In the morning, I will eat one egg, without the bread. For dinner, I might get some beans for protein and eat what's left of the salad I made tonight. There are not a lot of nutritional options here, and I definitely can't buy more than 2-3 bites of meat, unless I want to forgo eating for at least one day.
Hunger and poverty
I've worked alongside Malian entrepreneurs and watched the money they take in and out each day. If they don't do accounting, they may work all day and actually lose money. What makes it more difficult is the fact that 75% of this country is illiterate, so it's not that easy to just teach people accounting. Millions of Malians can't even write their own name or the numbers 1-10 (as I saw when I went to Baba's literacy school).
And what about the inequalities associated with a lack of electricity, clean drinking water and nutritional food? There are studies after studies that show that kids' brains actually never perform to their potential if they are even a little malnourished as kids. And what about the diarrhea associated with the lack of clean drinking water? Diarrhea-related dehydration is the leading cause of death in the developing world. And...think...it's all preventable. What about how tired we feel when we're sitting in a dark room? When we're sitting in a dark room, melatonin in our brain tells us it's time to go to sleep. So what is the effect of a lack of lights and electricity on the developing world? Being thirsty, hungry and tired all the time...pretty impossible to study, and thus, ever have a fighting chance.
CFAs (20-40 cents) in profit a day (If that). And if they're illiterate (which many still are, even if they graduated high school), and they don't do accounting, they may never make a profit...and just continue the cycle of never-ending extreme poverty that affects Africa and Asia more than any other places in the world.
I really, really ask you to participate in Hunger Awareness Week with me and other PCVs. Some of my friends - from America to Venezuela, some of my family and their friends - have also agreed to participate. Because even if it's just the tiniest bit of understanding for one week - maybe it will motivate you all to do something. And by something, I don't mean donate money.
Because what I see here is that dumping money on the situation is not fixing the problem. If that was the solution, the billion upon billions of dollars handed to African countries would be fixing a large portion of the world's poverty... And it's not getting better. The people here are used to handouts and are now dependent on foreign aid. Instead, education, understanding and volunteering your time are much better forms of "aid" than blasting out money.
Join us in Hunger Awareness as soon as possible. Join us today. And please let me know how your experience goes! I'll be blogging every day, and I encourage you to tell others too.
Food for thought, Mali:
For most people in the rural areas, who herd family cattle or work small family farms, living conditions are barely subsistence level. Houses are made of wood frames with mud walls and hard earth floors. Their diet consists primarily of cooked cereals and milk, and is essentially meatless. They wear secondhand clothes which originate in Europe and are shipped to local markets. Water comes from wells; cooking is done over wood fires; lighting is from small kerosene wick lamps; and sanitation is provided by pit latrines. Children are unlikely to go to school, and there are no local health centers.
(Mali Poverty and wealth, Information about Poverty and wealth in Mali http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Africa/Mali-POVERTY-AND-WEALTH.html#ixzz1Y3G3zBR1)
To a little more understanding...
I already signed up. $5.00 a day is no problem for me. I am proud you are bringing attention to this issue and we are sort of " gluttons" over here, especially with our meat. Be careful spending on those sweets and add more protein. That will give u energy. The bread is carbs so you'll burn off your energy faster. Protein burns slower. I will try to help with spreading the word.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Mom
Hello Laura,
ReplyDeleteYour blog is very interesting, and I enjoy reading it.
Greetings, succes and greetings to my friends in Kita.
Jaap Booij