Poverty and Gratitude

Early morning in Delhi, a man was slowly waking up. His bed was on the edge of a very busy street. Lots of people in the city slept on the grass medians, sidewalks, and parks. People everywhere.

Carrying home the groceries, gracefully.

The laundry facilities at the Tibetan Children's Village. Each household hosts 30 children .

The allopathic (western-style) hospital in Dharamsala is called Tibetan Delek Hospital. I urge you to click on this photo below to see it bigger. The patients standing on the balconies are wearing masks because they have TB. This hospital also has a department committed to serving victims of torture. Many, many Tibetan refugees were tortured by Chinese forces in Tibet. Tibetan Delek hospital also has departments for surgery, obstetricts, etc. It serves Indian and Tibetan people in the region, and it is severely underfunded. If you want to learn more, go here.

This simple entrance is the welcome center for refugees coming out of Nepal and Tibet. Every year since the Chinese occupation, 1950 to 2007, several thousand refugees streamed out of Tibet. Since the Chinese olympics in 2008, the borders were locked down and Tibetans have been unable to leave. Now, only a few hundred escape each year. The situation is dire.

A dugout home in the mountains, looking from the street above.

And now that I'm home? I'm grateful for streetlights, traffic control, clean water, my right to vote in a democracy, the reminder to simplify, the peaceful example of the Tibetans, and most of all I am grateful for perspective.

Delhi, India

The days we spent in Delhi were at the end of the hot/dry season, shortly before the rainy season. Record-breaking temperatures were above 110F. As students touring on a budget, we stayed in modest rooms at the YWCA, walked for transportation, and covered our noses to prevent inhalation of the dust and smog. Delhi shocked me with the smells, the filth, the extreme disparities. Poverty and wealth, starvation and fashion, architecture and tin. I avoided taking photos of the filth and poverty, knowing that I could not 'do it justice'.

These were my first impressions:

A meal from the Indian region of Rajistan.

Workers at a busstop. The public health announcement at the busstop urges drivers to hang up their mobile phones!

"Connaught Place", the fancy shopping zone in the center of Delhi.

Purses and pillow cases, music and jewelry from Connaught Place.

A diesel-burning auto-rickshaw juxtapositioned against the government eco-car.

Overall, I cannot say that I enjoyed or even liked Delhi. I appreciated the lesson of hospitality at the Sikh temple, and I needed the jarring reminders about poverty and excess. But the filth of the city, especially in the sweltering heat, was immense. On our last day in Delhi, some of us cooled off in the luxury of a fancy hotel for high tea. It provided acculturation for our travels back to our extraordinarily wealthy lifestyle in the USA.

Healthcare and The Economy: My two cents

I'm thirty-one. I graduated from college in 2000, did a year of "national service" in AmeriCorps, and then 9-11 happened. I tried to get a real job, thinking that someone would surely hire me with my expensive education, blond(ish) hair and tailored suits. Surely. But, no, I scrapped a few dollars together in the next few years, working in a dirty restaurant and lowly social-service jobs. Health insurance? Not even an option. I could barely make my student loan payments. In desperation, I moved to Colorado and got a job working in the fancy Ritz-Carlton world. I learned how the upper crust thrive, and I received dental care from a guy who fixed movie-stars teeth. Six glorious months of health insurance; awesome.

Returning to the Northwest greys, I got a job at another hotel but had to wait 3 months for health insurance to start. Two weeks before my insurance kicked in, I got a horrible spider bite which became so infected that my leg couldn't fit into pants. Despite the nasty wound and visible infection line up my femoral artery, I refused to go to the doctor. I feared the huge emergency room bill. I could've died, but a friend-of-a-friend, a natropath, saw me for free and got me on a cheap antibiotic and homeopathic meds. I survived and the wound healed. (Now I wouldn't think of sacrificing my life for the fear of an ER bill, but at the time I felt terrified and desperate.)

Around that same time, also uninsured, my brother had a terrible ear infection. He didn't go to the doctor until his eardrums were literally bleeding. The ER visit and antibiotics cost thousands of dollars, which he faithfully paid off in small increments over many months. His hearing never fully recovered.

Several years later, I decided to leave Portland and move home to Omaha for a couple months before Nick and I moved to Japan. I quit my job (with great benefits) and figured that I could coast without health insurance for the two months before my Japanese insurance began. A week later, I found out I had a situation that needed surgery and biopsies. I had no insurance. If I did have cancer, I would be screwed. Blessedly, the Creighton Medical Center completely covered all my expenses, supported by some national funds for low-income women needing treatment for breast or gynecological cancers. The surgeries were traumatic, but the costs were covered. I am grateful.

As I think about my early adulthood, I know that the timing of the post-9-11 economic crash and the increasing costs of healthcare has affected my life in real ways. Some 40- and 50-somethings complain about the difficult economy, and for good reason. But my entire adulthood (a decade so far) has felt like a recession. I think that many people my age feel this way.

In a NYT Op-Ed about being "thirtysomething", 31-year-old Porochista Khakpour writes:

"I’m part of the Peter Pan-ish Gen-X final trickle — and what do we know about growing up? My friends are all broke, say “whatever” too much, still live in Converses and constant hangovers, still yell at their parents on the phone and two seconds later ask for money and possibly a place to crash, are still deferring college loans and say everything is the new something-else, including the 30s, which are the new 20s. The economy is in crisis, and they don’t care; they have become Zen about debt, having been impoverished, if trust-fund-less, since they got out of college at the beginning of the millennium, a time of tragedy and war and turmoil, their entire 20s devoured by someone they refer to only by a twangy iteration of his middle initial."

My point? I'm not saying that I deserve to live on the dole because my life has been tough. I'm not blaming W for everything. But I am saying that this country needs healthcare reform. We need single-payer health insurance. And, without question, there should be a public option for health insurance as part of this healthcare reform. I have traveled to many countries that have successful nationalized healthcare models (Australia, Japan, Germany). I've been all over this globe and I can tell you that my international friends find our quality-of-life absolutely shocking. Most countries of the world have nationalized health insurance. Most people in the developed world do not fear illness like we do. European, Australian and Canadian students are not weighed down by inconceivable college loan payments for two decades after graduation. There are better ways to do it. Wake up, America. Stop bombing other people. Start spending the money to help our people live.

Bangkok: the Fabulous and the Fetid

We were sooooo excited to embark on a two-week vacation from Japan, off to Thailand! Nick and I, along with our friend Cat, were looking forward to warm temperatures, delicious food, spiritual exploration, beautiful beaches, and unknown travel adventures. Leaving Furano`s below-zero temperatures and piles of snow, we took the efficient and timely train to Sapporo. Our flight from Sapporo to Osaka was on ANA, a precisely-run Japanese airline company with sticky-sweet flight attendants who changed their cute little blue-grey uniforms multiple times throughout the flight. We departed from Osaka Kansai airport on Thai Air, a welcome change from the Japanese culture to which we have grown accustomed (and tired). Thai Airways` seats were each different bright shades of magenta, yellow, neon green, and purple. The blankets, pillows and eye pillows were the same brilliant purple. Hooray for color! The flight attendants were gracefully dressed in long Thai-style embroidered skirts. After a short 4-hour flight, we arrived in Bangkok!

With no sleep and a fast shower, we fell upon breakfast. Fruit lassies in various flavors, fried-banana-stuffed french toast with jasmine honey, thai jasmine rice and vegetable stir-fry. . . we were delighted. And off to see the city! We had only scheduled one day in Bangkok and were determined to give it our best. Our first discovery was a fabulous market and more fruit smoothies. After that we explored multiple wats (temples) and touristy sites via the assistance of a famous Thai tuk-tuk (3-wheeled smog-spitting stomach-lurching super-cheap taxi). We were also coerced to make some stops at a travel agent and a tailor, stops which provided kick-back gas coupons to our tuk-tuk driver. So be it.



The next photo is the inside of one of Bangkok`s numerous and spectacular Buddhist wats. It was fortuitous that we arrived in the city on a Buddhist holiday, which meant that we witnessed real Thai people worshiping or meditating at these religious sites, rather than the tourists who likely usually swarm the wats.



Some worshipers at the feet of a giant golden Buddah. When Buddhists bow three times before the statue of Buddah they are taught to pray for "Loving-kindness, Purity, and Wisdom". I love this meditative act.



A glimpse into a wat, where a Buddhist monk was speaking with a layperson.



We left the city after only one day, in order to spend Christmas at a Thai Buddhist monastery on a nearby island. On our way out of Bangkok via taxi (a proper air-conditioned taxi with doors and windows), we saw this boy while we were stopped at an intersection. He and his sister stood outside our taxi window and stared at us with sad eyes, imploring that we buy some flowers from him. His sister worked other taxis filled with foreigners. After completing transactions the duo returned to a cement shack next to the road, to wait until the change of light brought more possible customers.



The thing that touched me most was watching the adolescent girl flower-seller. She entered the cement block structure and flopped down on a motorscooter parked inside. Then, just like all teenage girls in Omaha, Osaka, and anywhere else, she critically inspected her image in the mirror of the scooter, fixing her hair and perhaps wishing for a different life. Of course I remember that feeling. At my work here in Japan, I see my students with that feeling, every day.



These shacks were built under Bangkok`s elevated toll-super-highway, next to a blocked and stagnant waterway.

You Should Know About: Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

America has a serious issue. Our "criminal justice" system is notoriously and immorally biased, classist, and racist. Just recently I came upon a couple compelling articles that I wish to share. . .


http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/70441/ This article on AlterNet is a bit encouraging.

http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/50586.shtml Here is an extremely poignant article about mandatory minimum sentencing, from the perspective of a UU minister serving as a Prison Minister in a women`s correctional facility. My full disclosure: in university I volunteered 2-3x/week doing prison ministry with many convicts who were undeserving of their severe sentences.

http://www.famm.org/ Families Against Mandatory Minimums is an excellent website for grassroots activism. Inform yourself!

Habitat for Humanity: Phillipines!

We made our downpayments to join a group of JETs traveling to the Phillipines in March. The plan is to spend one week building houses with HFH, and one week lounging/sightseeing. How exciting!

http://www.habitat.org/ap/

You Should Know About: An American Issue

Although most of my current focus is on my health/happiness/adjustment to living in Japan, this article in the NYT speaks to much of the work I previously did in America.

As many of you know, I spent my first few years as an adult working with cons, ex-cons, and troubled youth. My favorite job in college was leading the Prison Ministry program for my school, working in a close-security men`s prison in Minnesota. Immediately after graduation I attended a conference of artists, activists and prison employees, concerned about the U.S. system of incarceration. After university I spent several years mentoring youth-of-color in Portland, many of whom were at risk of falling into the `criminal justice` system. Most recently I volunteered for a Portland program assisting recently-released ex-cons as they adjust to life on the outside. This work is meaningful, rewarding, humbling, and so painful. The disproportionate number of inmates that identify as people-of-color is troubling; racial profiling and economic disadvantages are just two possible reasons for this American travesty.



September 30, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Jena, O. J. and the Jailing of Black America
By ORLANDO PATTERSON

This full article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/opinion/30patterson.html?th&emc=th. My selected excerpt:

"America has more than two million citizens behind bars, the highest absolute and per capita rate of incarceration in the world. Black Americans, a mere 13 percent of the population, constitute half of this country’s prisoners. A tenth of all black men between ages 20 and 35 are in jail or prison; blacks are incarcerated at over eight times the white rate.
The effect on black communities is catastrophic: one in three male African-Americans in their 30s now has a prison record, as do nearly two-thirds of all black male high school dropouts. These numbers and rates are incomparably greater than anything achieved at the height of the Jim Crow era. What’s odd is how long it has taken the African-American community to address in a forceful and thoughtful way this racially biased and utterly counterproductive situation.
How, after decades of undeniable racial progress, did we end up with this virtual gulag of racial incarceration?"

A way to help offset Global Poverty

March 27, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist www.nytimes.com

You, Too, Can Be a Banker to the Poor

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
KABUL, Afghanistan

For those readers who ask me what they can do to help fight poverty, one option is to sit down at your computer and become a microfinancier.

That’s what I did recently. From my laptop in New York, I lent $25 each to the owner of a TV repair shop in Afghanistan, a baker in Afghanistan, and a single mother running a clothing shop in the Dominican Republic. I did this through http://www.kiva.org/, a Web site that provides information about entrepreneurs in poor countries — their photos, loan proposals and credit history — and allows people to make direct loans to them.

So on my arrival here in Afghanistan, I visited my new business partners to see how they were doing.

On a muddy street in Kabul, Abdul Satar, a bushy-bearded man of 64, was sitting in the window of his bakery selling loaves for 12 cents each. He was astonished when I introduced myself as his banker, but he allowed me to analyze his business plan by sampling his bread: It was delicious.
Mr. Abdul Satar had borrowed a total of $425 from a variety of lenders on Kiva.org, who besides me included Nathan in San Francisco, David in Rochester, N.Y., Sarah in Waltham, Mass., Nate in Fort Collins, Colo.; Cindy in Houston, and “Emily’s family” in Santa Barbara, Calif.
With the loan, Mr. Abdul Satar opened a second bakery nearby, with four employees, and he now benefits from economies of scale when he buys flour and firewood for his oven. “If you come back in 10 years, maybe I will have six more bakeries,” he said.
Mr. Abdul Satar said he didn’t know what the Internet was, and he had certainly never been online. But Kiva works with a local lender affiliated with Mercy Corps, and that group finds borrowers and vets them.

The local group, Ariana Financial Services, has only Afghan employees and is run by Storai Sadat, a dynamic young woman who was in her second year of medical school when the Taliban came to power and ended education for women. She ended up working for Mercy Corps and becoming a first-rate financier; some day she may take over Citigroup.

“Being a finance person is better than being a doctor,” Ms. Sadat said. “You can cure the whole family, not just one person. And it’s good medicine — you can see them get better day by day.”
Small loans to entrepreneurs are now widely recognized as an important tool against poverty. Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his pioneering work with microfinance in Bangladesh.

In poor countries, commercial money lenders routinely charge interest rates of several hundred percent per year. Thus people tend to borrow for health emergencies rather than to finance a new business. And partly because poor people tend to have no access to banks, they also often can’t save money securely.

Microfinance institutions typically focusing on lending to women, to give them more status and more opportunities. Ms. Sadat’s group does lend mostly to women, but it’s been difficult to connect some female borrowers with donors on Kiva — because many Afghans would be horrified at the thought of taking a woman’s photograph, let alone posting on the Internet.
My other partner in Kabul is Abdul Saboor, who runs a small TV repair business. He used the loan to open a second shop, employing two people, and to increase his inventory of spare parts. “I used to have to go to the market every day to buy parts,” he said, adding that it was a two-and-a-half-hour round trip. “Now I go once every two weeks.”

Web sites like Kiva are useful partly because they connect the donor directly to the beneficiary, without going through a bureaucratic and expensive layer of aid groups in between. Another terrific Web site in this area is http://www.globalgiving.com/, which connects donors to would-be recipients. The main difference is that GlobalGiving is for donations, while Kiva is for loans.
A young American couple, Matthew and Jessica Flannery, founded Kiva after they worked in Africa and realized that a major impediment to economic development was the unavailability of credit at any reasonable cost.

“I believe the real solutions to poverty alleviation hinge on bringing capitalism and business to areas where there wasn’t business or where it wasn’t efficient,” Mr. Flannery said. He added: “This doesn’t have to be charity. You can partner with someone who’s halfway around the world.”