Mwen se grangou pou chanve (I'm hungry for Change)

About 6 months ago, I started working at Whole Foods, and I have slowly been evolving in to a Foodie.  I am questioning more and more about where my food comes from, and how it got there.  This fall I decide to take a few classes at Cincinnati State, and learn a bit more about how to grow my own food, and more importantly how to grow it in an Urban environment.  The more I learn about food, about what it takes to grow food, and the declining percentage of people who know how to grow food in the U.S., the more I worry about us as a culture.  We have put some of our most important necessities in the hands of others, and have hardly stopped to question, how do they plan to feed us? And, what exactly will that food be? 

Every week I spend my Friday's on a farm near downtown Cincinnati, called Bahr Farm, where Our Harvest Co-op trains young farmers how to plant, grow, and sell their crops.  I have helped to plant rows upon rows of greens, and garlic, and i have harvested pounds upon pounds of peppers, and tomatoes, cabbage, and carrots.  And now I know the secret that most Grocery stores don't want you to know... It is simply amazing how much food one can produce in such little space.

Today I read an article about how the amount of money families with Food Stamps will be declining, and I just wonder why we can't come up with simpler ways of creating food.  Did you know that once upon a time, before food stamps, the government would assist those in need ONLY if they helped to grow food in a local garden, or in their own garden?  What a radical, and yet so simple of an idea.  Help those, who choose to help themselves.  But wait... Somewhere along the way, we stopped teaching people how to grow their own food. School Gardens were ripped out and replaced with swing sets, Victory Gardens were no longer needed to help feed troops, and the microwave dinner was created, and devoured with such ferocity people suddenly wondered why they would even bother putting the time and effort in to a home grown, home cooked meal.  

So now we are stuck with, I dare say generations of adults and children-alike who hardly stop to question what it is their eating, let alone how it got there, or who grew it.  As long as it taste good, it passes the test.  Why have we allowed ourselves to get this way?  We complain about our hungry children, but at the end of the day, in any given metropolis, on any given day, restaurants throw out perfectly good food by the dumpster load.  Our children go hungry while our obesity rates keep rising, they give out sugary breakfast pastries in schools, claiming children can't possibly concentrate on an empty stomach, but what about that kid who just downed that cup of coffee with cream and 6 sugars?  How is his concentration doing? 

We don't stop to think about how what we are eating will affect us, we only think about what we can get to eat, how much of it we can get, and how quickly and cheaply we can get it for.  But all of this has me thinking.  What did Andyson, David, and Gabyson have for breakfast today? Did Herwine or Ernst even eat yet?  I have no idea, and that weighs heavily on me.  Article, after article has come my way over the past year, claiming food crises in Haiti.  Hurricane, and Earthquake, and mudslide destruction has created less food in an already unstable world, and caused food prices to go up.  And so my question to myself is, what can I do about that?  They know how to grow food, and they raise some of their own livestock at the orphanage, but is it enough to sustain 60 some children and adults?  What about all of the kids at school?  What is in their school lunches besides white rice?  What do they eat besides candy the blancs bring?  My hope is to one day be able to create sustainable rooftop gardens with food stuffs that everyone will be able to share, whether it be through community involvement or class room education.  Haitians are very smart, and knowledgeable.  They know about nutrition, and they know how to grow food.  They have refused help from large corporations by protesting and burning Monsanto seeds, despite their need for help.  They have not given up on their desires to thrive off locally grown food, and will keep fighting for their freedom to feed themselves. 

Haiti Ranked # 2 on the World Slavery Index

 http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2013/1017/Haiti-s-child-slaves-land-country-high-on-new-global-slavery-index-video?cmpid=addthis_twitter#.UmCle_f5POg.twitter

Slavery is something we all learn about in school.  To most of us, Slavery is something that happened a long time ago, something that helped to shape our country, and define our history.  But most of us believe that slavery is not longer an issue, well, at least not without the word Sex in front of it.  But this is simply not true.   It is roughly estimated that there are somewhere between 200 and 300 thousand children currently enslaved in Haiti alone.  They are called Restavek's, which means "to live with" and are often introduced to their awful situations through agreements made by their own parents.  Unfortunately this is a long standing practice in Haiti, and parents who are no longer capable of providing their children with food, clothes and schooling often turn to Uncle's, Aunt's, and friends of the family, who promise to give their children these basic needs in turn for daily chores.  When the child arrives in their new situations they quickly learn that there will be no schooling, and hardly any food or clothing, but an abundance of daily chores, such as hours of washing clothes by hand, hours of fetching water,  and cooking meals for the family, with possibly not food in return. These children are often ignored, treated like animals, and forced to sleep under tables, and work from sun up to well past sun down. (This is near the equator, so the sun shines almost 12 hours a day.)

To learn more about Childhood Slavery in Haiti, you can visit  RestavekFreedom.org, or if you live in the Cincinnati area you could even go visit them in person.  They are very knowledgeable, and are doing great things to help children in dire situations in the Port au Prince area.