What Povery really means

my books from amazon finally arrived today!

1) The Life You can Save by Peter Singer

2) A Long Way Gone - memoirs of a boy soldier by Ishmael Beah

3) Allah is not obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma

My first read is The Life You Can Save, and so far, every page is mind-gripping, appalling, and truly challenging.

one excerpt jumped out at me - and it's the definition of the word Poverty by the 60,000 poor women and men in 73 countries - it is summed up like this:

-You are short of food for all or part of the year, often eating only one meal per day, sometimes having to choose between stilling your child's hunger or your own, and sometimes being able to do neither.

-You can't save money. If a family member falls ill and you need money to see a doctor, or if the crop fails and you have nothing to eat, you have to borrow from a local moneylender and he will charge you so much interest as the debt continues to mount and you may never be free of it.

-You can't afford to send your children to school, or if they do start school, you have to take them out again if the harvest is poor.

-You live in an unstable house, made with mud or thatch that you need to rebuild every two or three years, or after severe weather.

-You have no nearby source of safe drinking water. You have to carry your water a long way, and even then, it can make you ill unless you boil it.

...

http://www.stwr.org/globalization/world-bank-poverty-figures-what-do-they-mean.html

メービ

さしぶりちょっと気になる人とデートした！：）

「メービ。」

ピキのコメンート待ってるよ！！

define this.

i just bought 4 books from amazon for roughly 50$. a truly great deal - but i reckon i should steer clear of this online haven for now - lest i do more impulsive shopping.

im·pul·sive / imˈpəlsiv/

• adj. 1.acting or done without forethought.

five (including the books bargain) Impulsive decisions I made today:
-voice lessons-guitar lessons-free kickboxing lesson-self-defense session
well, i could live with a little spontaneity.just give me more time.

'Enough'

''Starvation occurs because people are forced to live in the hollow of plenty. [...] When it occurs it represents civilization's collective failure.'' --Roger Thurow & Scott Kilman - Enough

Hopefully the Millennium Development Goals (from United Nations Millennium Declaration) signed in September 2000 will somehow alleviate the current situation - 2015? the scary thing is, it's not that far away.

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Target 1A: Halve the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day
  • Proportion of population below $1 per day (PPP values)
  • Poverty gap ratio [incidence x depth of poverty]
  • Share of poorest quintile in national consumption
• Target 1B: Achieve Employment for Women, Men, and Young People
  • GDP Growth per Employed Person
  • Employment Rate
  • Proportion of employed population below $1 per day (PPP values)
  • Proportion of family-based workers in employed population
• Target 1C: Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
  • Prevalence of underweight children under five years of age
  • Proportion of population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption

so what to you, so what...

i just finished reading James Maskalyk's Six Months in Sudan. from the beginning til the end, the book illustrates the hardships of the people in abyei, through the eyes of a msf (medecins sans frontieres) doctor.

i definitely don't have the writing skill to sum it up, so all i can really say is, read the book, read the stories of the people who live so far away yet whose flesh & blood are anything but akin to ours, and feel their pain and needs, or better yet, do something to help.

do something to help.

'for what is faith without deeds?'

''Tell me. What does it matter that fifteen minutes after this, the mother wrapped the body that once held her daughter and walked slowly down the hospital road, across the football field, and disappear with her bundle into the market?

She did.

So what to you, so what to us as humans. It's possible that because you were too far to feel its ripples, it doesn't matter at all.

[...]

... it's not about trying to reconcile two different worlds, it's about understanding that it's one.'

--James Maskalyk, Six months in Sudan

beautiful quote from beautiful people to beautiful people

'For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; Never throw out anybody.
Remember, If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.'

-Sam Lavenson/Audrey Hepburn

thoughts on people on skytrain

This is my second time witnessing this - and I just have to vent it out.

What is it with people pretending to be blind when there are an obviously pregnant woman standing, struggling to keep her balance on a rocky, crowded skytrain? This is my second time in a week standing beside a pregnant woman who has nowhere to sit.

And while I couldn't tell the people who are sitting down to give up their seat, I did what I thought was appropriate to do - I turned to the pregnant woman standing beside me, and without trying to keep my voice down, over the heads and ears of the people who are all comfortably sitting down, facing a lady whose very body image screams 'pregnant!' - I said -

'Are you doing ok? do you need to sit down?'

People on the skytrain need to stretch their necks, look up from time to time, or stop pretending to be blind or severely handicapped, grow up, and give the elderly and those who desperately need a seat - a seat.