foodmuseumblog

"You Don't Need an Army. Just Give Them Food."

From the Washington Post, Scott Wilson and William Booth:   

"At a commercial park of factories where workers make T-shirts and underwear for clients such as Gap, the owners were feeding workers and counting heads to see if they could reopen Monday. The free hot food was some of the only available in Haiti, served by the mobile kitchens brought in by the Dominican Republic government.

"It is not that complicated. They need help. A couple of soldier with guns protect us," said Maria Isauna Jimenez, a manager of seven mobile kitchens capable of producing 35,000 meals a day. "You don't need an army. Just give them food." "

It's About Cooking Fuel: Haiti

You may have read that Haiti has been almost completely deforested, that it battles erosion as well as pollution of its Caribbean waters. At its most simplistic---Haitians have cut down the country's trees over decades in order to make charcoal, charcoal to be used as an inexpensive, usable cooking fuel. Gas? Electricity? Propane? Apparently, not even kerosene stoves have been readily available or practical for the poorest of Haitians.

Deforestation is nothing new--the Greek isles of legend  once were filled with forests. But today? Slash and burn agriculture still goes on, regrettably, in tropical rain forests, but this is not being done in Haiti in order to produce more agricultural output. It's just so short term. To cook food. Tomorrow and the day after.

(Haitian charcoal-seller from http://bonsamaritan.org/haitian_marketplace.)

First, We Drink Water!

How many of you have been wondering why water was not the first supply brought in bulk into Haiti, along with the search and rescue teams?

Water and rescue teams, meds, docs, then food, temporary shelters. People are despairing, some looting, not so much for lack of food but from dehydration.  Perhaps water was not a priority because:

A--there's no one in charge

B--the calamitous conditions post-quake were unimaginable

C--an element we take so much for granted was taken for granted

In any event, bottled water is now plummeting from the sky in boxes--and the US military is preparing to convert salt water, in abundance, into drinking water, on at least 1 aircraft carrier.The USS Carl Vinson makes 400,000 gallons a day--and has 200,000 in excess it will give to the people of Port au Prince. Apparently, while desalination has been done for decades on ships like this, a means of transporting such water to those who need it has lagged behind.

According to this Time Magazine piece by Tim Padgett, "... early this week the Vinson will receive up to 100,000 special 2- and 5-gallon water "bladders," collapsible containers that will make transporting such enormous volumes of liquid more efficient. If the Vinson could actually move all 200,000 of its excess gallons to Haitian distribution points each day, it could as much as double the amount of water aid, which relief agencies and military helicopter pilots alike say is being used up faster than they can deliver it. That in turn would allow donor governments and organizations to turn more of their efforts toward augmenting other critical necessities like food, medical supplies and, later on, more long-term help like building materials."

Me,The Mall, and Haiti

As I walked through a nearby mall yesterday to find Chow's Asian Bistro---hungry and weary, a friend and I had worked steadily all afternoon on a major new project from The Potato Museum---we were gently accosted by retailers flogging mineral makeup, cell phone covers and other essentials of modern life. 

But what really caught my eye was  one woman hovering over another, with what appeared to be needle and thread in her hands. The lying down customer seemed to be getting her teeth flossed, right there, out in the open corridor. But no!  The client was having her eyebrows plucked and shaped. 

"Oh, yes," said the enthusiastic retailer, a young woman with dark brows. "This method really works!"

Major industries have risen up specifically to do for people the intimate body care they once used to do for themselves---eyebrow-plucking, nail filing and polishing, toenail clipping-- and employment is a good thing, yes indeedy. Still, while images of Haitians buried under plaster and pipe and dust and dreck and the indifference of their government roil about in many heads,  how can anyone bother to get one's eyebrows sheared off with thread in public in a mall?

Silly me. Life must go on!  My friend and I ate our fill of spicy eggplant, rice, and a green bean, chicken and chiles dish, plus two Chinese beers.

I returned home to see an email from Foodie Spouse about a woman trapped in the rubble of a bank, saved after five days of vigilance and effort on her husband's part, and steady hope and resolve on hers.  As her face entered the light,  she threw back her head and sang.