Reevaluations and Revelations

I have been thinking. . . .
and I think I have cleared up a few things in my mind. Well, a few things that just hit me that is. After arriving home to ICRISAT from the villages I had this big profound revelation like, "Wow! Now I have seen the real India, etc."
Just a few days more of thought has led me to believe - no - has led me to know for certain that I have not seen the real India. Not even close. Even what I perceived as the "real India" was merely a watered-down version, one diluted beyond recognition, of what this nation really has. Of the atrocity of hunger, disease, poverty, and famine that grips the Indian subcontinent and many areas of the world.
And what is worse to be completely honest, is that I am not really ready to see it. I don't think there is any easy way to prepare oneself to see such disparity. So in that regard, what I have seen is like a beginning dose - a small fraction of what true poverty is - of what true poverty looks, acts, and smells like.
Consider the following:
- the poorest 40% of the world's population accounts for 5% of global income, while the richest 20% accounts for 3/4 of world income,
- as reported by UNICEF, 24,000 children die each day due to poverty - and they die "quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death",
- around 27-28% of kids in developing nations are underweight or stunted - the 2 regions w/ most are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa,
- if current trends continue, the MDGoals of 1/2ing the proportion of underweight children will be missed by 30 million children, largely b/c of slow progress in S. Asia and sub-Saharan Africa,
- under 1% of what the world spent on weapons yearly was needed to put every child in school by the year 2000, but it did not happen,
- 1.8 billion people lucky enough to have water w/in 1 kilometer of their home, but not in their yard consume ~ 20 liters/day. (These people are very fortunate.) In UK, average person uses over 50 L/day just to flush toilet and in US, the highest water usage anywhere in the world - averaging 600 liters per day in total!
- in developing countries, 2.5 billion people rely on biomass - fuelwood, charcoal and animal dung - to meet their energy needs for cooking. Over 1/2 of the population in India and China rely on traditional biomass for cooking,
- indoor air pollution resulting from use of solid fluids is a major killer. It kills 1.5 million people each year, over 1/2 under age 5 - equivalent to 4000 deaths a day. This exceeds no. of deaths from malaria and rivals no. of deaths from TB,
- 706 million live w/out electricity in S. Asia alone and 1.6 billion people (a quarter of humanity) in total,
And one last set of statistics to share about the global priorities of spending from '98 in U.S. billions:
- global narcotic drugs = 400 (U.S. bill. dollars)
- military spending in the world = 780
- pet foods in Europe and the U.S. = 17
- and cosmetics in the U.S.? 8
Now to put things into perpective, consider what are estimated additional costs to achieve universal social services in developing nations:
- basic education = 6
- water and sanitation = 9
- basic health and nutrition = 13

If you would like to (or can stomach) reading more, go to http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats
(Anup Shah - March 2010)

The above may be enough to hold you over for awhile.

So, before I become a mere fact-dispeller, I better reflect and explain.
The reason I say I have not seen the real India is because the villages I visited had virtually zero deaths from starvation. However, that does not mean they were not poor, because they were. For me, some of the most interesting things were that:
- the landless laborers (those w/out land, they work for med. or large farmers in the fields) were so easy to separate from the large farmers. . . .
- 2 men I spoke with come to mind: one, a large farmer - little bit of a beer belly, plump cheeks, and a bubbly and gleeful personality - with passion and certainty of what he wanted from the government and of what new programs should be initiated . . .
- and a landless laborer: gaunt cheeks, pencil thin, more reserved and quieted, more ignorant and defeated. - no hope for new gov. programs, the concept was ridiculous to him - he simply wishes the gov. would carry out the programs they currently say they are running. . . .
- one house I interviewed a farmer in, I felt so sick - like I was going to pass out - the smoke inhalation in the room was unbearable b/c in the other room the woman made us tea by burning some type of biomass as fuel. . .
- I saw an elderly woman picking up cow pies and paddying them outside the car window in the Kinkheda village - I was at first shocked and then realized she was going to use them to cook with. . .
- In the Kinkheda village, if a familly saves and saves their money to buy a gas stove, regardless of their annual income, they no longer can be consider as below poverty line (BPL) and therefore, lose all access to the help the gov. provides for the families possessing BPL ration cards. . .
- I never understood what proper sanitation really meant for the developing world. Let's say it would begin with some type of a toilet - any type. We stayed in hotels and ate in restaurants, but I still am very fortunate I grew up as a tomboy. . .

So after a lot of fact-spewing and a few personal experiences, what does this really all mean? Stop buying cosmetics in the U.S. to ensure education for the children of the world? Cut down a miniscule sliver on military spending to save billions of lives - lives being lost to hunger and sickness and disease? No more domestic pets so we can focus on human nutrition and survival?

Frankly, and rather sadly, all aforementioned proposals are impractical. People don't starve because there is not enough food in the world, they starve because there is not enough justice in the world.
Maybe this accumulation of statistics and facts means something to you. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's the first time you see poverty for the atrocity that it is. Or maybe, like many, you have become hardened to the reality of poverty and hunger in our world. The reality of people literally not having enough food to eat. Enough calories for their bodies to function and survive. Maybe this downcast blog will serve as a deterrent from clicking on "Leah's Depressing Blog Updates" again! But I hope not. Ignorance is bliss, but after losing ignorance, bliss rapidly disappears as well.
To each person, I guess, this means something different. To each person, they will be affected in a totally personal way. We all have our coping and justification strategies. One of the most important things - one of the stepping stones for any change is first to acknowledge the truth. To stare at these inequities and see the sickness they truly are. The sores of our world. If you had a sore on your body, wouldn't you use a bandaid? Or would you just pretend it wasn't there? If we have sores - big sores - in our world, shouldn't we attempt to heal them?

Each person saved is one whole human life. And to live your life knowing you saved one whole human life would be a pretty extraordinary thing. . . .