Off the Shelf: Half the Sky

It's rare for nonfiction to take my breath away like Half the Sky did. And yet here I am, still breathless, and almost at a complete loss for what to say about this book. It was just that good.

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Merging my passion in women's issues and empowerment with my intense interest in all things International Development, this book was an impeccable blend of powerful human interest stories and rigorous, expansive research.

*

Half the Sky is an unprecedented publication in the Development world. Though movers and shakers have long struggled to draw attention to issues such as sex-trafficking/slavery, rape warfare, "honor" killings, maternal and infant mortality rates, and female genital cutting, this book is the first compendium to address all of those issues and discuss them in detail.

*

Though the body of the work certainly includes research and often macabre statistics, the author's greatest attention is devoted to the women who were interviewed about their own experiences. The stories of women like Srey Rath, a Cambodian girl forced into the sex trade with little chance of escape; Usha Narayane, a brave Indian woman who stood up to a brutal gangster in her village, freeing the women there from his awful legacy; and, a Pakistani woman who was raped and who broke tradition by seeking retribution, Mukhtar Mai opened a school, offering better opportunities for all people in her village. Their stories show the resilience of women around the world.

*

This book is just incredible. I didn't want to put it down. I got mad at Derrick this morning for taking too long to say goodbye; all I wanted to do was finish the book and then memorize everything it said.

*

Though I don't perhaps agree with every solution posited by the authors, I did come to respect many of their conclusions, as well as their ability to be persuaded by evidence they hadn't expected. Several times in the book they remark: "We thought we'd see this", or "We agreed initially with this position", but they changed their minds. This is a trait I admire so much it's one of the reasons I started to prefer The Economist to any other news source, but I digress.

*

What else can I say? This is one of those books I honestly wish every single person would read. Please do.

The Hunger Banquet

I know I haven't posted a lot lately, despite the fact that I have a beautiful new camera from Christmas. The reason? The Hunger Banquet. In addition to the three classes I'm taking right now, I'm also a member of the student organization Students for International Development, which organizes the Annual Hunger Banquet. I applied and was selected to be a co-chair for the Involvement Committee; our tasks include ticketing, the NGO fair, and preparing people for the actual event.

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So, what is the Hunger Banquet? It's an experience designed to illustrate the world's statistics. 70% of the world's population live in poverty. When you come to the Hunger Banquet, you are randomly categorized into three socio-economic levels and given a meal that represents the plenty, or little, people have in the world. Because of the poverty statistics, the vast majority of those attending the Hunger Banquet will be seated on the floor, sharing a communal bowl of rice and beans with their neighboors. Oftentimes, those seated on the floor leave hungry, which is hard, especially after watching the few people randomly selected to represent the world's rich eating a three course meal.

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The neat things about the Hunger Banquet are these: it opens eyes to the poverty that exists in the world, allows the participants to use this new knowledge to actually make a difference by hosting the NGO fair before and after the event, and raises funds for groups throughout the world who are fighting poverty and suffering. All the food is donated, and the money doesn't go back to SID, so the money is carefully donated to organizations that participate in responsible development.

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What of the theme, Human Dignity? Oftentimes, we think of the poor as people who need Western saviors, yet poor people are hard working and innovative, despite their sometimes desperate circumstances. This theme helps us understand that human worth is intrinsic, not material. The poor have their own dreams and aspirations and ideas for how to achieve them, though they might need additional resources to do so.

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Though helping organize this event has sometimes been stressful, I am so excited to attend. Included in the program: an amazing speaker, incredible dancing and entertainment, and the chance to rub shoulders with others who want to learn and those who already care about International Development.

Jumping My First Hurdle

Finals week...

it makes your blood run cold,

makes you short of breath,

and yet nothing makes you happier...

when it's over, that is.

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That's right, I jumped my first finals hurdle last week

and you know what?

It really wasn't that bad!

However, a lot of this is due to the fact

that I took a pretty light coarseload:

8 credits total.

Additionally, I have a lot of help:

a sweet, even-tempered 8 month old,

a wonderful babysitter, a sister-in-law

who loves me and who lives a few blocks away

and an amazing husband.

I'm a lucky woman indeed!

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Now I'm preparing for a new semester of challenges

and actually, I'm really looking forward to it!
Since I was also completing a challenging

correspondence class last semester

I'm celebrating by taking all of my credits on

campus, which seems like it would be harder, but trust me, it won't be!

So I'll be taking a little more, 9 credits.

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Two literature classes? But won't that mean a lot of

dum-da-dahm...

reading?

I'm looking forward to it!

I'll be taking Women's Studies in Literature

and

British Lit. 1900-1950.

The other 3 credits will be taken up by my

International Development class

which is concentrating on

writing curricula for

Community-based education.

I'm so excited!
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I'll also be busy with a club on campus

called Students for Inernational Development.

I applied and was selected to be a chair for the annual

Hunger Banquet this year

which will be put on in March.

I'll post more details on this later.

Thanks for reading;

I realize that a lot of you

already know this stuff!

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Wish me luck!

Help is just a click away

I don't know about you, but I haven't had the time or money to travel to any less-developed countries and hand someone a buck that they sorely need. That's why I'm putting in a plug for Ads4Africa.org and freerice.com, two really easy ways to fund charity work.

Ads4Africa is a free web brower you can download from the site; by adding this browser and searching the web with it you help raise funds for entrepeneurs. How? The money comes from advertisements on the search engine. Every month, these advertisers pay Ads4Africa for the exposure they've received from people using the search engine. Ads4Africa then partners with Kiva.org in loaning money to entrepeneurs in Africa. The loan is interest free. All you have to do to donate money is perform your Google searches from ads4africa.org.

Free rice? I love it! Essentially the same model is used for this website, though instead of giving you a web brower, freerice offers trivia questions in such categories as: spanish, english vocab, french, algebra, calculus, etc. For every question you answer correctly, freerice donates 10 grains of rice to fill a hungry persons bowl. The money for the rice donated comes from the advertisements you see on the freerice screen. 10 grains don't seem like much? It adds up fast! And trust me, it's just a little bit addictive. If you have older kids, it's really fun for them too!

Rubbing Shoulders with Llamas

First thoughts about Llamas:

1. They are much larger than you would think.
2. As with most species (actually, every species besides human) in the animal kingdom, the males are much better looking than than the females.
3. Rubbing shoulders with Llamas is really quite fun, once you get over the smell.

On November 14th, I joined a group of students volunteering at the Hare Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, UT (utahkrishnas.org). They have a beautiful temple there where they do yearly festivals such as The Festival of Colors, The Festival of Lights, etc. Every year, this wonderful group of people helps with the Annual Hunger Banquet put on by Students for International Development and so we decided it was finally time to return the favor.
After meeting at the Duck Pond south of campus, we caravaned to Spanish Fork and made a beeline for the temple. After respectfully removing our shoes, we were given a brief tour of the temple and divided into groups for volunteer work. I opted for the outdoor "destruction" team, despite the cold, and we were promptly led to a fenced-off area wherein dwelt the llamas. My group was immediately put to work by a formidable member of the Hare Krishna community who had a slight British accent. Our job was to destroy the old crate-like feeders and scrap the remains. When asked how we were to destroy the feeders she replied, "With ferocity!" We were given one pick-axe sort of thing and a sledgehammer which we took turns using. By the end of destroying the crates we'd invented quite the system. Very fun.
After destroying feed-crates to our heart's content, we were invited inside to enjoy a vegetarian buffet and look around the bottom level of the temple which houses all sorts of Indian-style crafts and cloths that are (conveniently) for sale.
Here we are, tired, but happy. See me with my Harvard hat and Evan's Hairstyling College sweatshirt (quite the combo)in the front row?
I think I should also add that they really put us to work (which was awesome!). In fact, I was pretty dang sore for the next few days. Embarrassingly, this doesn't take much. I'm still sore from playing air hockey with Derrick at the cabin this last weekend.

Feeding the now-starving llamas. They'd been waiting around for their food for a while before we'd finished. Notice the lovely new feeders the other group had built?

• I think it's quite neat the relationship this community has with the far more prevalent LDS one. They were extremely welcoming and courteous to us and others that had arrived to volunteer. I hope to go back very soon for a yoga class they offer on Saturdays. Namaste.

Decisions, decisions...

I haven't written anything for a while and it takes so long to get photo updates due to our prehistoric camera setup that I thought I'd just do a journal entry of sorts on this blog update. We've settled into Provo, Derrick is now working, and Felicity and I are getting used to seeing a lot less of him, which has been sad but what can you do? He's really loving the work he's doing right now and I've realized how wonderful it is to be back West and closer to family and friends.

I'm especially excited to start school this fall, but it's a little overwhelming and scary for me. I hear very different accounts from BYU students about the university's figurative ratings on the family/mom-friendly scale and Felicity's so young I'm not entirely enthused about finding child-care for her.

For those of you who have long since given up on following my schooling interests this should be an update for some of you. I've decided to stick with English as my major with an emphasis in Children's and Adolescent Literature and have chosen to minor in International Development. I've been interested in Humanitarianism and International Development for as long as I can remember but since my mission I've become increasingly impressed and interested in sustainable economic development. To explain the difference between economic development and humanitarianism: it can be as extreme as the old addage "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime." Sustainable development means instead of just giving food or aid, you build an infrastructure with the people to begin feeding and helping themselves. Although I do feel that philanthropy has it's place, this way of helping others can be much more helpful in the long term. This being said however, I read the Economics classes in the course listings and almost cringe. Yes, University Economics courses scare me, but at the same time I genuinely feel much more interested in classes such as "The Political Economy of Women", "Anthropology of Development" and "Education, Poverty, and Community Development".

Perhaps the answer is clearer to some of you than it is to me, but should I do what is actually interesting to me in the short-term or should I bite the bullet and take classes that will benefit me with my long-term goals? I guess that's why the title of this post is "decisions". I'm going to have to do some soul-searching and find out what's right for me and my family.

Jen meets Muhammad Yunus

Life in Boston has it's frustrations, but it's perks make up for it. Being here has been a great experience for both of us. Harvard truly can be considered a "hub" of sorts for many of the interesting discussions, research and debate going on in the world.

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Though I experience this to a much lesser degree than Derrick, I have been able to sneak my way into a few of the "perks" Harvard has to offer. The most recent was an opportunity to listen to Muhammad Yunus, the "grandaddy" of the microlending movement.

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He started the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in the '70's. The object of this particular bank was to give small-scale loans to those too poor to have any credit (i.e. the people who needed the loans the most). These people had virtually no hope to get out of their situation in life because as the old addage states, "it takes money to make money" (or start a business). Most banks thought Yunus was nuts, but he has proved to the world that the poorest people in the world are usually victims of circumstance (and loan sharks). In fact, instead of financial disaster, his bank has one of the most enviable payback rates in the entire world.

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Something interesting he also learned through opening the bank was that women are much more likely to start a successful small business with their loans and, subsequently, pay their loans back. As a result, his bank and many other microlending banks in the world focus on giving loans to women.

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A GREAT documentary on this unique movement, which originally interested me in Yunus and his work, can be found on KBYU.com and is called "Small Fortunes." It will list the viewing times available. It is fascinating to see how creative, simple and successful many of these small business can be; from just buying a cow to sell the milk, to buying a sewing machine to sew empty juice boxes togethether to make unique-looking purses. I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who wants to find out more about this. Yunus has also authored several books and even signed my copy of "Banker to the Poor". :)