Call for an end to the violence in Gaza

I have recently been made aware of the ongoing violence and bloodshed in Gaza. Please join me in calling for international support for an immediate end to the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. This is not a question of allegiance to either Palestinians or Israelis, this is a humanitarian issue. There is culpability on both sides. But the reality on the ground is that innocent civilians are being targeted and to this day, at least 320 Palestinians have died and 1,400 injured. Four Israelis have been killed by rocket attacks from Hamas. This is the worst attack on Gaza in decades. International NGOs have had difficulty getting food and supplies into Gaza, and the hospitals are overwhelmed. They are bombing children and universities.

The U.S. government, under President Bush, is predictably siding with Israel, saying that they “hold Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza.”

President-Elect Obama, for whom I campaigned and who I hold in high esteem, has tacitly approved of the Israeli air strikes, saying, “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that,” as well as, “[a]nd I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.“

I think it goes beyond saying that any parent would defend their children against a rocket attack. But I’m not quite sure how that translates into justifying airstrikes upon other little children?

The Christian Science Monitor put it excellently in an Op-Ed piece, “This raises the question: Can Obama similarly empathize with Palestinian moms and dads whose children have been killed in the violence? Authentic empathy, and especially empathy for children killed and maimed with rockets or bombs, has no moral double standards…No 7-year-old boy or girl, Israeli or Palestinian, should live in a universe where they are to blame for the destruction of their own little bodies.”

Please, sign the petition.

Mango Tutorial

It’s that time of year again…Mango Season! This year, there were far fewer of the big, juicy mangoes that I love so much. Even my friends who bring me mangoes from the Ecuador-Peru border told me that this year had been bad for mangoes, due to too much rain. Despite all this, thanks to shipments of mangoes from Guayaquil, I have managed to eat my share of the most delicious fruit in the world. I thought I’d end the year by posting a small tutorial on the proper way to cut mangoes for the maximum eating pleasure.

I started with one of the most beautiful mangoes I’d ever seen – firm to the touch and a beautiful red, green, and gold. It smelled heavenly.

Step 1: Stand the mango up lengthwise and cut one face of it off, making sure to avoid the pit.

Step 2: Do the same with the other side. You now have three piece: two halves and the middle part, containing the pit.

Step 3: Gently score each mango “face” into a grid.

Step 4: Now you can “pop out” the face so that the cubes are easy to cut or eat right off the peel.

Step 5: Enjoy your delicious golden treat! Tip: I often like to put my mango cubes into the freezer for a little bit. After an hour or so, they are more delicious than ice cream and healthier to boot. Yum!

Happy New Year, Feliz Año Nuevo, and Xin Nian Kuai Le to all!

Recent Activities Lightning Round

Since I’ve been so lax about updating my blog, I’m going to try to provide a summary of the activities I’ve done recently. In the past few months, I have been:

• Teaching nutrition classes to elementary school kids, using the “el cuerpo es como una casa” (the body is like a house) analogy.

• Continuing my cooking and nutrition classes with mothers’ clubs. Recently I’ve been talking about the importance of micronutrients such as iron and vitamin A, so we made foods rich in vitamin A (carrot soup) and iron (egg tortilla with swiss chard). The moms helped cook and we had a great time.

• Back in September, I started a six-week series on sexual education geared for teens. I completed the course with high school students in two neighboring communities. Ecuador is a fairly religious country (read: socially conservative), so for many of these kids it was their first time learning about sexuality, STI’s (including HIV/AIDS), and contraception. They were a little shy and giggly during some of the intial sessions, but once you introduce games like Jeopardy into the mix, they had no problem shouting out the new concepts that they’d learned. I also had the kids run a condom relay, where they had to put condoms on bananas, but in relay teams. These were kids that have probably never seen a condom before in their lives. It was quite fun. With the high rate of teen pregnancy in this country, I’m just not a believer in abstinence-only education. As G.I. Joe famously said, “And knowing is half the battle.”

• More recently, I’ve been helping my counterpart organization (PLAN Internacional) with a sanitation project. PLAN and the Municipio (city government) are putting in latrine systems in a few of the more rural communities in our region. These latrines have toilets, washbasins, and very basic showers. The money for this project comes from the Municipio as well as donations to PLAN from sponsors in Europe, Asia, the U.S. and Canada. As part of any PLAN project, there is an educational component involved. That is where I come in. I give mini-workshops to the community members about the importance of clean water, boiling your water, washing your hands, why we should use latrines instead of the campo abierto, and managing our garbage. Pretty simple stuff, I guess, but important for an area with high rates of intestinal parasites among children and adults. Not to mention teaching some basic environmental awareness is always a good thing for people’s health and the environment. Win-Win.

• In my spare time, I’ve ben running a lot. I’m trying to train for a half-marathon or marathon when I get home next year. I’ve also perfected the art of making creamy macaroni and cheese. I made it for Thanksgiving in Loja, where it went so fast I hardly got a bite; I also made it last week for my two site-mates, where I got a big thumbs-up.