Reality Bites

Although, I have been posting some funny things on the blog, I never want to take for granted the more serious side of living in a 3rd world country. Things you can't photograph....many things you can't even express, and an infinite number of things you can't "fix".

* The devastation of an already meager corn crop by elephants looking for food

* A 3 year old boy sent to boarding school. His mother had AIDS, his father doesn't want him.

* The same little boy sick with the fever from malaria and a mommy not there to comfort him

* Women accepting that being beaten by their husbands is a way of life

* Sharing the same husband (good or bad) with numerous other wives

* Families suffering from upper respiratory problems because their mud hut is not ventilated to allow smoke to escape from their home

* Children herding cattle rather being schooled

* 400 children, 4 classrooms, 4 teachers

* Walking to school being dangerous, because of real predators (leopards, hyena, babboon)

* The acceptance that "surgical procedures" are nearly usually a "death sentence"

* Women/children walking miles for a bucket of water

* Those same women making you a cup of tea with the same water

* Flies lighting, un-noticed, on a child's face (usually near the eyes or nose)

* A 12 year old girl given in marriage by her father to a much older man

* A mother's desperate search to get her "special needs" child help

* The public's perception of people with "special needs"

* The belief that witchdoctors are the answer

We Americans take so very much for granted and then we think we should have more. Do you wonder if you could make a difference?