do-good designer vivienne westwood

Do-good designer, Vivienne Westwood, recently unveiled a new fashion venture, which benefits fashionistas and those living in poverty. Read all about these fab bags here on Mission Hot Mama.

skiff ride through the slums of floating shanty town, belén - east of iquitos, peru

the UN reports that 1 out of every 3 hondurans suffer from hunger

For me, cooking stemmed as a survival instinct; borne from a place of necessity. My mother passed away when I was 17 years old and my father’s culinary skills were limited to the Weber grill (in the middle of an East Coast winter, mind you). The first time I played the deceased mother, no-questions-asked truancy card, I took the R5 Septa Regional Rail into downtown Philadelphia and discovered row after row of farmers’ stalls filled with fruits, vegetables, meats, artisanal pastas and cheeses at Reading Terminal Market. The colors, smells and cooking possibilities overwhelmed my senses and my appreciation for food, one of the universe’s most basic needs, has only grown to a sacred place of respect and praise over the decades. It’s a privilege I take great pleasure in three times daily and never take for granted.

Hunger, homelessness and poverty were rampant during my recent volunteer project for The Global Citizen Project with Building a Future and Hogares Crea in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. I had seen painful glimpses of these issues on previous trips to Latin America, but never experienced its innumerable effects so intimately. When I traveled throughout Honduras in late 2007, I was floored by the beauty of the country. On this trip though, beauty was limited to a few quick countryside road trips and the gracious hospitality of the Honduran people. If beauty existed in Tegucigalpa, it was trumped by never-ending piles of trash and an omnipresent concern for gang violence, which kept my personal safety radar working overtime. The city (and country) face a plethora of problems ranging from its 40% unemployment rate, $1.30-1.50 average hourly wages and pervasive lack of education (the average Honduran completes 6.5 years of school) to widely divided social classes and a 19.5 year old age median. Factor in Honduras’ recent Presidential coup and its resulting political polarization, and it doesn’t take a Poli Sci major to realize that the country doesn’t exactly have an easy recipe for success.

All of this doom and gloom certainly was disheartening, but one aspect that stuck with me was how the impoverished children I worked with ate. For many of the capitol city’s dwellers, Walmart-like superstores, fast food and Coca Cola culture reigned supreme (the seemingly holy trinity of American exports). It was a drastically different story for the youth I interacted with on a daily basis. Leftover, expired and damaged foodstuffs donated en masse by local grocery store, La Colonia, were delivered approximately every 10 days to Asociacion Puente al Desarrollio, a command central of sorts for several local humanitarian efforts. Cardboard boxes, loose bottles and jars arrived piled high in the back of barely functioning pick-up trucks – exposed to Honduras’ hot, tropical sun for who knows how long – dripping, smelly and disgusting. Although each delivery technically contained thousands of pounds of food, it was product that most Americans would deem inedible, myself included, although my cultural anthropology schooled significant other tried to convince me that human stomachs can, over time, adapt to digesting spoiled food. Thank goodness I was only a short-term guinea pig. Within minutes of unloading cases Cinnamon Chex, Dannon yogurt, Hy-Top Barbecue sauce, 100 pound bags of red beans and rice, and cases of water marked “Haiti Relief,” goods were carefully distributed to a growing group of street side spectators, who clutched items with we-just-won-the-lottery fervor. When I returned to Asociacion Puente al Desarrollio, more than half of the foodstuffs had already found homes.

During my three week stint in Honduras, I found myself consuming the food truck stuffs on several occasions. I survived several week expired, sun-exposed yogurt and Spaghetti-O slathered boiled chicken parts. I sliced off fuzz-free parts tomatoes and scooped out the bright orange flesh of rotting papayas. I refrained from whipping out my SteriPen when tooth-achingly sweet juice mixes were served with surely contaminated water, if only to not offend the gracious hospitality of my hosts. I pumped my body full of probiotics and prayed that my malaria meds (Doxycycline) would keep my gastrointestinal system safe. I quickly learned how to say “Yo no tengo mucho hambre,” but never wanted to come across as ungrateful for a second to these people who generously shared when they had so very little themselves. I even rationalized that I’d already lived through E.coli twice plus two parasitic diseases from contaminated water sources in California (go figure) and the humiliation of submitting weekly fecal samples to the Monterey County Health Department, so surely, the worldwide water gods would want to play nice with me. I worried endlessly about whether these boys and girls were getting enough nutrition.

Despite constant exposure to these hard realities, I had a difficult time fully understanding a world that lives a moment-to-moment, hand-to-mouth existence. My head spun with pie in the sky dreams of a future filled with opportunity for these children, where hopefully, someday, the Vatican would realize that education and (gasp!) contraception is far more valuable than creating hungry mouths. A “can do” kinda gal who’s rooted in a reality where God doesn’t write child support checks can dream, right?

As a food and travel writer and avid home chef, food plays an important role in my world, whether it’s shopping my local farmers’ markets in Seattle or volunteering at Marra Farm Giving Garden or Food Lifeline. Having easy access to a variety of fresh, healthy food is something I’ve always taken great pleasure in, but after being on the receiving end of how people living in poverty eat, I promise to eat every last bite on my plate and thank my lucky stars for the privilege.

project | building a future and hogares crea in honduras

I'm back in action after three weeks in Honduras for the first project of The Global Citizen Project. My apologies for delayed posts – technical logistics in Tegucigalpa were unpredictable and it’s taken me a full week to step away from the volunteer project and process the experience. On many levels, it was a very difficult trip for me. My time was divided between working with first and second graders in Colonia Ramón Amaya Amador, an underserved barrio on the outskirts of the capitol city, through Building a Future, and with abandoned and street children, many victims of violence, addiction and abuse via various Hogares Crea homes.

I had seen painful glimpses of the face of poverty, homelessness and hunger in Latin America on previous trips, but never experienced its myriad of effects so intimately. Despite this often seen reality, I also traveled throughout Honduras in late 2007 and had been floored by the beauty of the country. On this trip though, beauty was limited to a few quick countryside road trips and the gracious hospitality of the Honduran people; if it existed in Tegucigalpa, it was lost on me. The city (and country) face a plethora of problems ranging from its 40% unemployment rate, $1.30-1.50 average hourly wage and pervasive lack of education (the average Honduran completes 6.5 years of school) to widely divided social classes and a population where more than 50% of its people are ages 18-years-old and younger. Factor in Honduras’ recent Presidential coup and its current political polarization, and well, you don’t exactly have a recipe for (easy) success.

I’m eager to share specific experiences and stories with everyone and plan to do so over the coming weeks before I take off for project two of The Global Citizen Project with Karikuy in Lima, Peru in mid-July. In the meantime, here are my photos on Flickr of the people and places in Honduras that have given me pause and huge gratitude for the opportunity, education and friends and family in my life.

national volunteer week

Whew. There’s a lot going on this week. It’s National Volunteer Week (April 18-24), which I honored today by volunteering a few (far too fast) hours at Marra Farm Giving Garden in the South Park neighborhood of Seattle via the United Way of King County. My county’s United Way chapter works closely with Solid Ground, an organization that provides shelter, food, home care, transportation and other basic services to more than 38,000 families and individuals in need throughout King County. Under the aegis of Solid Ground and several other organizations, the four acre Marra Farm engages people in sustainable agriculture and education (of all ages) while enhancing local food security. (The food grown at Marra Farm goes to local residents and the senior lunch program through the Providence Regina House Food Bank, Mien senior citizens, and Concord Elementary School students and their families.) To get an idea of how much this little four acre plot contributes to the local community, consider this: In 2009, more than 1,400 volunteers contributed over 6,200 hours to help us grow more than 16,000 pounds at Marra Farm. Wow.

Marra Farm also has one heckuva fascinating history. First of all, it is one of only two historical farms preserved with Seattle city limits (the other being Picardo Farm in Wedgwood, Seattle). It was operated from the early 1900s until the 1970s by the Marra family, until they sold it to King County Parks and Recreation under the premise that the parcel must remain open space. The land got very little love until the immigrant neighborhood residents joined efforts, along with a VISTA volunteer to kickstart restoration efforts in the late 1990s.

Big thanks to Marra Farm Coordinator, Sue McGann for being such an amazing ambassador of the land and of farming and for reminding us to honor the farmers who grow our food and to always support our farmers' markets. You made me leave Marra Farms yearning to return and get my hands back in the dirt to play some small part of the bigger picture. Also, thank you Erica and Yuri of United Way of King County for coordinating this volunteer opportunity and for throwing free Seattle Mariners tickets into the mix to sweeten the already satisfying deal. I look forward to working with all of you again. (Be still my volunteer lovin' heart.)

A quick side note also in the volunteering vein. I'd like to thank Sarah Van Auken of Volunteer Global for the nice mention of The Global Citizen Project's fundraising efforts in her "Fundraising for Your Volunteer Trip" blog post. Sarah's been an incredible supporter of my project and a fantastic proponent of volunteer travel and I'm so very glad this gal is on my team. She rocks.

So, what are you waiting for? Get out there this week and do something for the world already. Even if you only have an hour or two to spare, between National Volunteer Week and Earth Day (coincidentally, my birthday), there are oodles of volunteer opportunities this week. Go make a difference. (Because I know you can.)