Darfur In My Crack

Thanks to Rob Grilly, I am no longer living in blissful ignorance of the existance of the Save Darfur thong.

It was a happy life, one untrobled with questions like: "Really? This is how we signal our support for the victims of mass astrocities? By pasting their forlorn children's faces on our crotches?" But that is all over now.

My only comfort is that now you're all suffering along with me! :))

Why? Tell me WHY??

As you may have heard, most of Pakistan is currently underwater. Approximately 20 million people have been affected by the floods, which have been going on for three weeks now. 1600 have died and millions have been displaced from their homes.

Despite the epic scale of the disaster, the response has been slow. As Laura Freschi reports over at Aid Watch (citing an article from The Chronicle of Philanthropy) eleven U.S.-based charities say that they have received only $5 million in donations for the victims of the flood. Contrast this with the $560 million raised in the 2 1/2 weeks following the earthquake in Haiti in January and you might find yourself wondering "what gives?" So I say to you "what gives?" Why the slow / small response?

Is it because:

A. It owuld be disrespectful to the victims of 9/11
B. We don't take out our checkbooks until the death toll tops 5000, thank you very much?
C. Donating to water-related disasters is soooo 2004?
D. If we don't contribute, then Pakistan will be forced to rely on India's assistance and then they'll send India a thank you fruit basket and it will be the start of a beautiful friendship?
E. Wait, what? There are floods in Pakistan? Shouldn't this be on the news or something?

OK seriously enough of jesting around, I really do wanna know why...

Friendship vs Romantic Breakups: Why does it hurt so?

A couple of friends over the past few months have come to me upset and in tears over a break up with their best friend. I've sat with these same friends during times when they've broken up with their boyfriends/girlfriends and honestly their reactions got me thinking...Why is being left by your best friend more painful than being dumped by your boyfriend/girlfriend/lover?

Boyfriends/Girlfriends tend  to come and go as the years go by. As we grow older and our needs change, branch out into our careers and really begin to live our lives, the significant other get different. The dates change from drive-in movies to upscale restaurants, from sodas at the skating rink to cocktails at the club. Only one thing never changes: when the relationship inevitably ends, you call your best friend (i'm not going to equate best friend here as a girlfriend because my best friend is a guy) and have a  good cry.

It is our best friends who help us eventually laugh about the experience, who help us point out all the many little faults in our ex, and who invariably point out "s/he wasn't good enough for you, anyway." Having someone to call at 3am when you're horribly post-break up, standing in the kitchen shovelling french vanilla ice-cream in your mouth, who will tell you quiet honestly that you're beautiful, wonderful, and too great for that loser is the best pick-me-up of all.

So...what do you do when you and your best friend end up breaking up?

No relationship is ever perfect, and in life there are no guarantees that anything will be able to stand the test of time. But there is rarely anything more heart-breaking than losing a very close friend. It is our friends we trust with our darkest secrets, our fears and ideas and dreams. Boyfriends/girlfriends/lovers do not get as close to us as best friends do, not without some serious years invested into the relationship. And it is our friends we fall back on when our romantic relationships fail, our friends who will hold our hands at a parent's funeral and show up in the middle of the night when someone has broken into the car outside.

Attempting a romantic relationship without having a best friend to talk to is like walking a tightrope without a net: there is no emotional support to cushion us if and when we fall. And when there is no romantic relationship to distract us, life can be very lonely going to the movies and out to dinner by yourself. In losing your best firend you lose your closest confidant and closest link to unconditional love. Because, admit it, we have let our best friends see us at our worst - and that's the kind of thing you just don't want to share with a boyfriend/girfriend/lover.

But even friendship is not foolproof, and even the best of all best friends can go their own way. People grow and change, and the closest of friends do drift apart. It can be more painful to lose a best friend than to lose a lover; often, the best friend has been around much longer. So when you lose the one who is closest to you, it can break your heart wide open. Romantic relationships aren't the only relationships that can fall completely apart and seem to halfway destroy us.

We will often go through lovers much more quickly than we will friends, handbags and sometimes even cartons of milk. That's why our relationships always seem so new and fresh and exciting. Does the saying "best not to put all our eggs in one basket" apply here? Do we depend so much on our best friends that we can almost put a strangle-hold on them?

It's true, being left by a best friend is usually more painful than being left by a lover.

Awakening the Gypsy Spirit

Packed my bags, packed the car and headed out on the road without a destination. I only knew I had to get out of DC for a bit. I felt alive and happy like a kid in a candy store with so many choices.

I love the mountains so that was the direction in which I steered my car...to the Shenandoah's  (cue John Denver's Country Roads) I stopped at this really cool diner called the Pink Cadillac and it was there that I read about it being Elvis Presley week (Aug 10-15). Guess where I was heading? My no-destination roadtrip now had a destination...

Memphis, Tennessee

So with my trusted GPS, radar dectector (saved me from numerous tickets), AAA membership and Choice Hotels membership, I was off criss-crossing my way to Memphis. I've never attempted a roadtrip like this before. New York was the furthest I'd been. It turned out to be an awesome spur of the moment decision.

In my 8 day roadtrip I've driven 3,800km, 'touched' 6 states, visited 8 cities, participated in a whole lotta activities AND saw Rod Stewart,

I pushed and challenged myself on some of my limits and in turn learned new things about about myself.  I fought my fear of heights & claustrophobia by ziplining & zorbing down the Smokey Mountains. And also found peace and satisfaction while hiking and immersing myself in some of the country's history.

I'd always wanted to visit Graceland and I finally did. Some of the other highlights was a cruise on the Mississippi River on a paddlewheeler, a peek into the workings at Jack Daniel's distillery, an up close and personal encounter with Smokey the Bear, dinner at Bubba Gump, trying to find my way out of  a Mirror Maze, Beale Street at midnight ;o) and the Backbeat Mojo tour

Now that I've had a taste of a true roadtrip I'm hankering to get on the road again (I've not even been home 24hrs!) And that my dears, is how the seed of a coast to coast roadtrip has been sown :))

The Brazilian That Went South!

(Finally getting around to finishing up entries i've had sitting in my drafts for yonks. Pressure is on with the weekly blog posts on my list :D)


...


Time for my three-weekly wax appointment with LiLi. Lili is from Iran and does a brazilian wax better than anyone else on the planet. As soon as I walk in to the salon, a wide smile cracks up her face and her brown eyes twinkle as usual. 

"Nice to see you, despite all the pain you'll be inflicting on me," I tell her as she puts her arm around me and leads me off to the private SPA rooms at the back. 
"Naaawwwww, now don't be like that you big baby," she giggles, "I scream for you, OK."

She does this. It's quite amusing. She'll tear a wax strip off and then screams with me. Every time I flinch, she tuts and shakes her head at me, and if I scream she does as well. But because I've been a good girl and kept my appointments, maintenance work is surprisingly painless. Well, not painless, but not as bad as it could be. Come on, having your lady parts waxed is never going to be painless, but there are degrees of pain and this I can just about handle. 

"OK, now I clean the bum," Lili exclaims and slaps me on the thigh as I'm lying there legs akimbo.
"What?!"
"I see hair, I have to clean them!"
"Clean them?" I ask, bewildered and add "and I can assure you that my bottom is quite clean, thank you very much, you mad woman. I am NOT a hairy chick!"
"I mean clean the HAIR, take it off, we don't want any hair, you want to be monkey?" she almost shouts and looks insulted, then slaps me again. "Legs up!" she commands me and I obey. "Put your hands here and pull apart, yes, good, perfect. Now pain," she informs me and more hot wax is spread on to my most sensitive areas.

Yep, this is where dignity goes to die, right here in Lili's SPA room is where self respect meets its untimely demise, and it is here that I am lying with my legs in the air and spreading my butt cheeks for her. 

After a little glimpse of what hell might be like, I am once again smooth as a baby in all the right places and Lili looks pleased. 

"Ah, yes, perfect!" she announces and stares at her handiwork.

I shoot her an evil glance and cover up.

"Evil bitch," I tell her and giggle.
"Better I see hairy bum than boyfriend."
"I do not have a hairy bum!" I yell, outraged.
"Everyone's hairy. I help. Now it's good. I see you in three weeks, big baby."

I sigh as she gives me a hug before taking me back into the main part of the salon where I pay $60 for the pain and humiliation I have just endured. 

Cell Phones Trumps Toilets

I saw this thanks to Bill Easterly's blog at NYU's Development Reseach Institute - Aidwatch. Puts some things in perspective. So - what's the market transformation for toilets?


India has more cell phones than toilets


Far more people in India have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet, according to a UN study on how to improve sanitation levels globally.

India's mobile subscribers totalled 563.73 million at the last count, enough to serve nearly half of the country's 1.2 billion population. But just 366 million people -- around a third of the population -- had access to proper sanitation in 2008, said the study published by the United Nations University, a UN think-tank.

"It is a tragic irony to think in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones," so many people "cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet," said UN University director Zafar Adeel. Adeel heads the UN University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health, based in the Canadian city of Hamilton, which prepared the report.

Worldwide, an estimated 358 billion dollars is needed between now and 2015 to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people with inadequate sanitation from 2000 levels.

Proper sanitation "could do more to save lives, especially those of young people, improve health and help pull India and other countries in similar circumstances out of poverty than any alternative investment," Adeel said.

Poor sanitation is a major contributor to water-borne diseases, which in the past three years alone killed an estimated 4.5 million children under the age of five worldwide, according to the study. The report gave a rough cost of 300 dollars to build a toilet, including labour, materials and advice. The world could expect a return of up to 34 dollars for every dollar spent on sanitation through improved productivity and reduced poverty and health costs, said Adeel. He said improving sanitation was "an economic and humanitarian opportunity of historic proportions."


Intriguing and thought provoking...think about it...are we placing our priorities where it is needed? Is it an issue of the greater public or the government needing to be educated? Whatever it is, for now we will continue seeing folks peeing on the streets while talking on their cell phones while we wait on perspectives & priorities to shift into place...smh

Dishing Up The Action

I'm going to be hitting the big 4-0 in a year's time (yes i divulged my age, so...?) and as I did just before I turned 30, I find myself going through this whole big introspection of where I am in life...have I meet the mark or am I far behind...yada, yada, yada...

I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about my bucket list (No thanks to the movie, pfft!) and I've decided to tweak it a little to the top 20 things I would like to accomplish before June 2011 in no particular order...

1. Visit 5 new cities in the US 
2. Go up in a hot air balloon 
3. Visit 5 Smithsonian Museums in Washington, D.C 
4. Visit a renaissance fair
5. Eat one thing which I find utterly distasteful
6. Take a ride on the highest roller coaster in any amusement park I find myself at 
7. Attend a broadway musical in NYC
8. Learn to play Poker well enough to hit the tables in Atlanta
9. Visit at minimum 3 new countries 
10. Publish one blog entry per week (oh-o right now i'm 3 posts in areas)
11. Live through one of mother nature's little quirks (check ...ok so i'm cheating but it is kinda cool to list)
12. Skydive 
13. Ride a mechanical bull. 
14. Spend three months getting my body into optimum shape. 
15. Get passionate about a cause and spend time helping it, instead of just thinking about it. 
16. Read 20 books 
17. Send a message in a bottle 
18. Write a fan letter to my all-time favorite hero/heroine 
19. Sleep under the stars
20. Write my will 

Why am I posting this for all and sundry? Coz this way i know ya'll will hold me to it and check-in on my progress. I'm done with the coasting, it's time to act!