Sometimes, I cannot believe that Lily is only 5. I was drying her hair tonight, when we had - out of the blue - the following conversation:
Lily: Mami, why do people in Africa don't have any food?
Me: This is not everywhere in Africa, Lily. Some countries have food, but in others there's a famine.
Lily: So why don't they have food? Do they not have any stores there?
Me: No, Lily. It's because the climate is very, very dry there, and they have wars going on, so there is no food growing and people don't have any food.
Lily: Mami, why don't all the countries that have so much food, like Germany or the U.S.A. send food there so all people in the world can eat?
There she got me. How do I tell my 5-year old about monocultures for profit. How do I tell her about subsidies for crops for bio-diesel. How do I tell her that corn is rather turned into gas to fuel our cars than sent to starving people. How do I tell her about food spoiling to keep the prices stable on the world market?
The solution could be so easy, this planet is able to sustain all of us, but the people who could ensure that everyone has enough choose not to. And we all watch, maybe donate some money to an aid organization, which gets lost somewhere in the administrative swamp of said organizations. And people keep dying from hunger, from contaminated water, from preventable deseases, from a lack of hygiene.
How do I tell my daughter that this is the world she is one day inheriting from us?
It's hard to answer so many of our children's questions, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteThey have such a simple, and innocent, view of life - which is so often the way that we'd love to see things done - but it's always so hard to answer without ruining that innocence :(
It certainly is, Katy. She is still so full of innocence, things are so simple to her, and the sad thing is that they could be, if people really worked together and wanted to improve the world. It pains me to know that one day she will lose this innocence to this world..
DeleteHonestly, why can't the world think like a five year old. It truly could be that simple if people would stop thinking about themselves and a profit and just think about helping one another.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand it either. You should have seen her face when she came up with the solution, somewhat like "duh, I have the solution". Yes, you do, my love.. Now, we just need to convince all the greedy people in power that it could be indeed that easy.. Sometimes I would like for the world to be run by 5-year olds ;-)
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