Think Bigg

With my sister just days (hours) away from having Baby #2, I’ve been looking at a lot of baby gifts lately, and this one definitely deserves a mention.

Check out these baby clothes disguised as flower bouquets at The Baby Bunch!

The flowery bunches come in a variety of colors (see photo below) and include: one bib, one t-shirt, one hat, a onesie and a pair of socks. All the clothing is 100% organic cotton and comes sized for babies either 0-6 or 6-12 months.

What pregnant mom-to-be wouldn’t love a bouquet of these flowers?

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Sometimes actions done with the best of intentions can have unintended ill effects.

Because of concerns about the impact of heavily-subsidized American farm products on the farmers of African countries, CARE, one of the world’s biggest charities, is walking away from $45 million a year in federal financing.

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According to the NY Times,

Under the system, the United States government buys the goods from American agribusinesses, ships them overseas, mostly on American-flagged carriers, and then donates them to the aid groups as an indirect form of financing. The groups sell the products on the market in poor countries and use the money to finance their antipoverty programs. It amounts to about $180 million a year.

The Christian charity World Vision and 14 other groups, which call themselves the Alliance for Food Aid, say that CARE is mistaken; they say the system works because it keeps hard currency in poor countries, can help prevent food price spikes in those countries and does not hurt their farmers. Not least, they argue, it also pays for their antipoverty programs.

But some people active in trying to help Africa’s farmers are critical of the practice. Former President Jimmy Carter, whose Atlanta-based Carter Center uses private money to help African farmers be more productive, said in an interview that it was a flawed system that had survived partly because the charities that received money from it defended it.

The politics of food production and distribution are complex and interesting, and I believe destined to become even more so with the current frenzy over corn-based ethanol production.

What ultimately happens with CARE remains to be seen, but I applaud them for trying to think three steps ahead of what might be most politically and financially expedient.

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My last installment on my India trip…

As I mentioned previously, the Little Flock Orphanage, our hosts for the two week visit, is located just outside the village of Kondamangalam, about 45 minutes drive from Chennai. The orphanage currently cares for 35 children, with plans to expand to 50 children in the near term, and up to 100 children in the long term.

Some of the children are full orphans, meaning that both of their parents are deceased; others are only partial orphans, with living parents elsewhere in the country that are unable or unwilling to care for them due to financial circumstances or in a few cases, new marriages. They are all between the ages of about four to ten, and all are expected to remain at Little Flock until they reach adulthood. None will be adopted out to other families.

During our two-week stay, several parents brought children to visit the orphanage in anticipation of dropping them off to stay. According to the staff, many parents or caregivers go through a process of introducing their kids to the new environment, and after several visits, eventually leave the kids in the care of the orphanage. No matter how kind the caregivers, or how welcoming the other children, however, each time a child thought they were about to be left permanently, it was a heartbreaking scene to watch. Sadly, it is a scene that will ultimately be repeated many times more in the future.

Despite the emotional scars that an abandonment of that sort must leave behind, the children for the most part seem to be happy and well adjusted. Many of them, especially the younger ones, are obviously hungry for affection and take every opportunity to make contact with adults – shaking and holding our hands, sitting on our knees, holding onto our pant legs.

Days begin early at 6:00am with devotions and chores. After a full day at school, the kids wash their own laundry by hand and clean out their own cabins. Dinner, homework and evening devotions end their day. In between their chores, however, the kids are still kids and they enjoy the grounds of the orphanage as an open playground.

Because the kids of Little Flock are not eligible for adoption, what they perhaps need most at this time is sponsorship. Why not visit the children online and see what Little Flock is doing to reach not only the needs of these children, but the needs of the village as well? Having spent two weeks there, I can say with certainty that your dollars will touch the lives of many in need.

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As I get more distance from my trip, I think I’m still trying to process what I saw and what it all means.  Here are some random thoughts on Indian village life.

Living for two weeks without hot water, reliable running water, flushing toilets, bug-free bedsheets or privacy was a stretch for me, but even as I was stretched to live outside my comfort zone, I was cognizant that my standard of living was at least equal to or better than the wealthiest people in the nearby village of Kondamangalam. (Except perhaps for their some of their satellite televisions!)

The village of Kondamangalam is about a 45-minute drive from densely-urban Chennai and has about a thousand residents. Most of the villagers are involved in agricultural work, though some are employed outside the village in Chennai. Ford Motors, for example, has a plant within commuting distance for those with transportation. Cows, water buffalo, chickens, goats, dogs and the occasional monkey wander through the village at will and add color to the local fields and rice paddies.

The people of the village live in everything from simple thatched roof huts with dirt floors to two-story constructed homes with tile floors and decorative tiles. Due to the campaign promise of a local politician, nearly every villager seems to enjoy a television set, but with that notable exception, most of them live without the basics that we in the West take for granted.

I spent several days going through the village from house to house with an interpreter to make appointments for people to see the medical team that was to follow us. It was an interesting window into the lives and needs of the rural poor.

Those individuals living in well-constructed houses tended to have medical needs commensurate with their standard of living — repetitive motion injuries, for example, or cataracts. Individuals living in more meager circumstances dealt with more serious problems — boils, lice or digestive tract worms.

The people of the village were warm and welcoming to our group of 19 very out-of-place Westerners. Despite our Indian-style clothing, we were certainly an anomaly in the lives of these people, but almost without exception, people welcomed us with a smile and a hearty, “I am fine!” (For some reason, the phrase “I am fine!” seems to be the one phrase in their English conversation class that managed to stick!) A couple of women invited us in for tea, and lots of folks came out to tell us all about their aches and pains (news of the subsequent medical team spread through the village very quickly). The children all loved to have their photos taken, and loved seeing themselves in the display screens of our digital cameras.

Many of my favorite moments from the trip were spent in the village. (Sipping scalding hot sweet tea in unbelievably thin plastic cups for a whole 4 rupees — 1 cent — was a highlight!) I went to India to get out from behind my laptop and see for myself what life is like in the developing world. And while it wasn’t my first experience seeing the dichotomy between modern and ancient, or between very rich and very poor, it was a new version of it for me, a uniquely Indian one.

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I’m back! It was a very long two weeks, and I’m still processing how it went and what it all means, but I wanted to at least throw some photos on the blog to prove that I was there!

These are a few photos from our day out and about in Chennai. India is as colorful and contradictory as you expect it to be. More on that shortly…

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