Haiti’s poor resort to eating mud as prices rise

redspicyflag

Master Don Juan
Joined
Mar 29, 2006
Messages
654
Reaction score
6
Location
Wherever I please
WTF

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22902512/

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums and Charlene Dumas was eating mud.

With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

"When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times a day," Dumas said. Her baby, named Woodson, lay still across her lap, looking even thinner than the 6 pounds, 3 ounces he weighed at birth.

Though she likes their buttery, salty taste, Charlene said the cookies also give her stomach pains. "When I nurse, the baby sometimes seems colicky too," she said.

States of emergency
Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertilizer, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well.

The problem is particularly dire in the Caribbean, where island nations depend on imports and food prices are up 40 percent in places.

The global price hikes, together with floods and crop damage from the 2007 hurricane season, prompted the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency to declare states of emergency in Haiti and several other Caribbean countries.

Caribbean leaders held an emergency summit in December to discuss cutting food taxes and creating large regional farms to reduce dependence on imports.

Dirt cookies become bargains
At the market in the La Saline slum, two cups of rice now sell for 60 cents, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a year ago. Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate, and even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost $1.50. Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs $5, the cookie makers say.

Still, at about 5 cents apiece, the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples. About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

Merchants truck the dirt from the central town of Hinche to the La Saline market, a maze of tables of vegetables and meat swarming with flies. Women buy the dirt, then process it into mud cookies in places such as Fort Dimanche, a nearby shanty town.

Carrying buckets of dirt and water up ladders to the roof of the former prison for which the slum is named, they strain out rocks and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt. Then they pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun.

The finished cookies are carried in buckets to markets or sold on the streets.

An unpleasant taste
A reporter sampling a cookie found that it had a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.

Assessments of the health effects are mixed. Dirt can contain deadly parasites or toxins, but it can also strengthen the immunity of fetuses in the womb to certain diseases, said Gerald N. Callahan, an immunology professor at Colorado State University who has studied geophagy, the scientific name for dirt-eating.

Haitian doctors say depending on the cookies for sustenance risks malnutrition.

"Trust me, if I see someone eating those cookies, I will discourage it," said Dr. Gabriel Thimothee, executive director of Haiti's health ministry.

Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven children. Her family also eats them.

"I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these," she said. "I know it's not good for me."
I don't hear this sh!t on the news

:box:

That's fvcked up
 

Maxtro

Master Don Juan
Joined
Apr 6, 2004
Messages
3,206
Reaction score
31
Location
Kalifornicatia
redspicyflag said:
WTF

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22902512/



I don't hear this sh!t on the news

:box:

That's fvcked up
Actually I did see that on the news. I saw them make the mud "cookies" and then the British reporter took a bite and said it was good while making the "I can't believe these people have to eat this shit" face. His expression showed more pity than disgust.

It's a shame what is happening to the rest of the world.

As for the children. That girl is 16 which most likely got pregnant at 15. I may sound like an ass, but people who are that poor have no business having kids. When the children are having children it's not exactly a boom to their economy.

This may seem really cold, but IMO the best thing for her and the baby is for it to die. She can barely care for herself and there is no way she can care for the both of them. If that child lives it will probably have the most miserable life possible. It saddens me to think of what they will have to go through.

I do not think that giving money to things like save the children is a good idea though. The kid might eat healthy and grow up strong, then get pregnant at 16 and the cycle continues. Money should go towards population control. Condoms and other birth control methods and classes.
 

j-flex

Banned
Joined
Feb 16, 2008
Messages
194
Reaction score
2
and the reason they live like that is because of socialism.

google economic liberty index
 

SmoothTalker

Master Don Juan
Joined
Jul 22, 2003
Messages
1,021
Reaction score
12
Location
Canada
Come now, Cuba is far more socialist/communist, and they are much better off in terms of basic needs. Hell, if it wasn't for the embargo, they'd probably have a very decent quality of life - and I know as I have been to and spoken with actual Cubans.

Anyway, lets not get into a socialism is evil debate.

It's tragic that people are this poor. There are many long term solutions, but it's very hard to implement them given the current state of things in Haiti.

Ironically, it use to be one of the richest colonies in the new world.
 

Maxtro

Master Don Juan
Joined
Apr 6, 2004
Messages
3,206
Reaction score
31
Location
Kalifornicatia
The embargo actually has very little effect on Cuba. All it means is that the U.S. and Cuba cannot trade with each other, which means that Cuba cannot get any goods that the U.S. makes. Cuba is still free to trade with the rest of the world. Consider what the U.S. actually produces then you realize that the Cubans aren't missing much.

The reason that nobody in Cuba has 50" plasmas made by Sony and that they aren't driving BMW's is that nobody has any money.

I live with my Cuban grandmother who is always in contact with her family on the island. She says that there is very little work in Cuba and nobody is rich. The embargo is the least of their problems. Even if the embargo is lifted nobody in Cuba is going to be driving around in Corvettes.
 

SmoothTalker

Master Don Juan
Joined
Jul 22, 2003
Messages
1,021
Reaction score
12
Location
Canada
Obviously not, I never said they would be filthy rich. And it's not the lack of American imports that hurts them, but the lack of the worlds biggest market for export. The US imports plenty of products from similar tropical countries and also sends out tourists that blow lots of money.

Are you telling me having both of those wouldn't give the Cuban economy a bit of a boost?

Yes, I realize they're still free to trade with the rest of the world. But shipping stuff to/from Europe and Asia is much slower and more expensive then the two hour boat ride to Florida.
 

djtdot

Senior Don Juan
Joined
Jan 21, 2006
Messages
239
Reaction score
0
Maxtro said:
As for the children. That girl is 16 which most likely got pregnant at 15. I may sound like an ass, but people who are that poor have no business having kids. When the children are having children it's not exactly a boom to their economy.

.
I am pretty sure she probably didn't have much of a choice but to get pregnant at that age. Somebody probably forced her or maybe her parents 'sold' her to some older guy. Women aren't that free in the 3rd world.
 

Maxtro

Master Don Juan
Joined
Apr 6, 2004
Messages
3,206
Reaction score
31
Location
Kalifornicatia
I was thinking that something like that may have been possible. She may have had sex voluntarily and then she might not have. But it was her choice to have the baby.

There are countless young women around the world who are impoverished but still choose to have children.
 

djtdot

Senior Don Juan
Joined
Jan 21, 2006
Messages
239
Reaction score
0
Maxtro said:
I was thinking that something like that may have been possible. She may have had sex voluntarily and then she might not have. But it was her choice to have the baby.
What if she was forced to become pregnant but didn't access to have abortion clinic? Haiti is a pretty poor country and I am sure they don't have that many doctors. Women are treated pretty much like a commodity over there( and in a lot of 3rd world country) and most of them have no control over their lives whatsoever.

Huh, maybe we should send some women from here to some third world country. Maybe then they will realize what's the situation of women there. And when they come back they will be less biatchy lol.
 

What happens, IN HER MIND, is that she comes to see you as WORTHLESS simply because she hasn't had to INVEST anything in you in order to get you or to keep you.

You were an interesting diversion while she had nothing else to do. But now that someone a little more valuable has come along, someone who expects her to treat him very well, she'll have no problem at all dropping you or demoting you to lowly "friendship" status.

Quote taken from The SoSuave Guide to Women and Dating, which you can read for FREE.

j-flex

Banned
Joined
Feb 16, 2008
Messages
194
Reaction score
2
SmoothTalker said:
Obviously not, I never said they would be filthy rich. And it's not the lack of American imports that hurts them, but the lack of the worlds biggest market for export. The US imports plenty of products from similar tropical countries and also sends out tourists that blow lots of money.

Are you telling me having both of those wouldn't give the Cuban economy a bit of a boost?

Yes, I realize they're still free to trade with the rest of the world. But shipping stuff to/from Europe and Asia is much slower and more expensive then the two hour boat ride to Florida.

of course it would boost the economy!, but since cuba is communist it makes no sense to adopt one of the most importat capitalist policies: (free trade):crazy:

it is a well known fact that ALL countries benefit from international trading, since they can all exploit their comparative advantages. (google david ricardo).

Capitalist countries that adopt a free trade will do very good no matter how poor they are at the moment, for example: hong kong, singapore.


shipping stuff from other parts of the world is not expensive,heck sometimes is even cheaper than to produce it locally (thats why we import almost everything from china and asia, even though they are in the other side of the world), what makes it so expensive is the commerce barriers like quotas and import taxes.
 
Top