Unless you have been living under a rock, you should know that the Salahis are back. Now I haven't been living under a rock, and I was vaguely aware that at some point some other rich woman was reported kidnapped by her husband and that this week there is news of some woman previously reported kidnapped who just ran off with a singer from a rock band. It's the sort of news that interests me not one whit, but it wasn't until this morning when I accidentally paid attention for a few minutes that I realized that this warring couple was the Salahis, the couple who crashed that party at the White House a few years back.
I don't know whether Mrs. Salahi is one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but that show was mentioned.
“It’s not a publicity stunt. I wish it was. I wish Ashton Kutcher would jump around this corner and say, ‘You’ve been Punk’d' … But this is our (life). We had a beautiful marriage. This was real love. I think everybody, all of our friends, the people who know us, know that we thought it was real love. I’ve been duped. I’ve been lied to. I’ve been cheated on. And our family and our home was destroyed. It was full of love and now it’s an empty home.” said the tearful Mr. Salahi on TheToday Show this morning.
Now. Why have I devoted three whole paragraphs to a story and to a couple of people that I clearly have zero interest in?
Well, it's because of two other stories that I heard today. One was on the Internet and one was on the BBC news (which acknowledges that there are other countries in the world and other problems than those experienced by the United States).
The internet story was about three women who are trying to raise funds to build a school in Ghana. Why? To save at least a small number of children from being sold into slavery by their parents who cannot afford to feed them.
It all started when a 36 year old mother of three somewhere was doing research on the country of Ghana, from which she had just agreed to sponsor a child, through Compassion Int'l.
During her research, she saw pictures and read stories about little boys as young as four years old sold into slavery by their parents and then forced to work under cruel and inhumane conditions.
It's estimated that one in four children in Ghana work as child laborers, many of them in the fishing industry where they work seven days a week, 14 hours per day paddling long distances, diving into dangerous waters and pulling heavy fishing nets from lakes. Little girls are often forced to work as servants and eventually sex slaves.
The woman, who sponsors a total of 13 children through Compassion, got together with two American friends to volunteer with Partners in Community Development Program, a charitable and non-governmental organization which works to eradicate poverty and cultural practices such as slavery. The woman decided to raise $30,000 to build a school where children in one community can study and hopefully have a better future than just being sold into slavery while they are still just babies (slightly older than Brianna).
If you would like to know more, you can check this blog, which also has a link to a place where you can make a contribution. They have only raised 12% of their goal and must raise $30,000 by November 6.
Then came the BBC report of the results of a devastating flood in Pakistan. You've seen these disaster pictures before--tent cities, streets filled with sewage, children dying. Over and over again Mother Nature inflicts her wild weather conditions on an area and leaves a path of devastation in her wake.
In this particular report, they focused on a toddler who had the bloated stomach of malnourishment, the lackluster look in her eye of someone who has given up hope. An adorable little girl who was dying in front of the camera. Rescue workers attempted to get her to a hospital, constantly prevented by impassable or flooded roads.
In the end they got her to the hospital and got her started on IV fluids and we will probably never know if they saved her or not.
I have stated here over and over again that it seems that the woes of the world are insurmountable but the problem with us in this country is that our major news gathering agencies are focusing on the warring Salahis and what outrageous thing Charlie Sheen has done today and stories like a young woman trying to save a handful of kids from slavery in Ghana, or a little girl dying in the sewage of a flooded village in Pakistan just get passed over.
The woes of the world are insurmountable, but little pockets of hope appear here and there...Joe's well in Kenya, the school in Ghana...people who have little money to spend are putting themselves out there and making a different, even if they will never know it.
Do your little bit of GOOD where you are. It's those little bits of GOOD put together that OVERWHELM the world.
--Desmond Tutu
No comments:
Post a Comment