Sharing can Save Us

Sharing homes & community JHC early years in NC

Sharing stuff is a great way to protect our environment.  For example: when our Community was at its largest number... 20+ people (only 3 were children)..., we had one lawn mower, 4-5 cars depending on what was running, 3 houses, 3 washing machines and 2 dyers, 3 refrigerators,  2 freezers, and no dishwashers.  One of the houses was where the night-time staff for the shelters lived, which means it was a working home.

The three shelters had 2 washing machines, 2 dryers, 1 dishwasher, 1 commercial stove and 1 regular stove, 4-5 refrigerators and 3 freezers, and the mower and the community used also was used in the work of the shelters.   We pooled all groceries together so we all ate cheaply. The shelters grew until they housed more than 20 people per night.

When I go to see my mother in SC, her home is on a cul-de-sac, there are 6 houses on that cul-de-sac.  Two homes are families with 2 children; the rest have 2 people in each home.  Except for Mama's home, each house has - at least - two cars, some three.  Each house has a mower and edger ( Mama, my brother, nephew, and in-laws share a monster of a mower and weed wacker).  Each house has a washer and dryer because clothes lines are not allowed.  I suspect each has a dishwasher.

Besides not needing as much if you share, there is a camaraderie in sharing.  If all the people in Mama's cul-de-sac shared mowers, then they would have to work together and get to know each other.  Mama tried several times just to get her neighbors and those on her street to come to the house as a group.  As a whole, they were not interested.

Working together means that you start helping each other.

I admit that here in Nicaragua we do not know our neighbors across the street very well.  When we moved here, we were geographically isolated.  By the time neighbors came to us as Ciudad Sandino expanded, we were swamped with work and delegations and volunteers and getting to know more people was just too much.  But we still share within our Community and our work.  

The CDCA has three fuel efficient cars for 9 people, 1 car for Paul, Becca and the girls to get up to their village and three working 4 by 4 vehicles for volunteers, delegations, construction work, etc. and one 4 x 4 that only goes to and from the clinic...it is on its last legs.

JHC food sharing today

We have two washing machines for our community and no dryer or dishwashers.  One of our staff has a mower and weed wacker and we pay him every once in awhile to cut the growth. We pool most of our groceries together so we feed people fairly cheaply.

Pooling resources is good for the environment and good for the soul.  Helping each other out means that when you need help it is not so hard to ask for it  or to give it.  So much of the culture in the U.S. is individualism and getting what I and my family...and only what I and my family...needs or wants.  

In poorer countries that is not the case.  Why?  Because without each other death is close at hand.  

For the earth, sharing makes sense.  Becoming more of a community with our neighbors, our larger surrounding area, with the world is the way we survive as a species, because death is close at hand. - Kathleen

Redistribution or I'm Gonna Pop Some Tags

Karaoke is a big thing with all our kids, even Tiff loves to watch.  One song I LOVED to hear Coury, Daniel and Joseph do is the rap song “Thrift Shop.”

“I’m going pop some tags.  Only got twenty dollars in my pocket…”

“Thrift Shop” was always a crowd pleaser at their favorite karaoke place in Managua.  Besides loving to hear them sing…and I LOVE thrift shops!

When we ran shelters, it was always fun to look in the “Free Box”…donations that came to the shelters.  We were paid (and still are) $5,000/year and the free boxes helped us, as well as our guests, have clothes or shoes.  When Tiff and Jessica were little they would get all excited to see what treasures might await them.

In the blog on reusing and reducing, I failed to mention redistributing.

I am loathe to throw away stuff.  I can give away easier, but I keep thinking “but what if I need it later?”  We don’t make the kind of salary to be able to go re-buy stuff.

Our friend Jim Trowel enjoys decorating, and when he visited us many years ago I asked him what we could do with this house of ours. He said, “Well the first thing you need to do is get rid of 50% of your stuff.”*

Redistributing means that less has to get made and transported.  It is great for the environment!  Going to thrift shops means reusing.  Giving to shelters, food pantries, thrift shops means less for the land fills.  Most items can be used for long periods of time after someone else is tired of it. 

It is so much fun to just see what is there in the thrift shops.  

It is freeing to get rid of your stuff if you have stuff in abundance, because there are people…many people…who would love to have some stuff, because they have little.

Redistribution of clothes, shoes, household goods, toys, games, puzzles, and let’s not forget wealth…never forget wealth...is freedom.  It’s fun.  It’s right.
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 *To be honest he didn’t say “stuff”!
-Kathleen

One Easy-Peazy Way to Conserve!

Going back to the States is less of a culture shock than it used to be, but I still find parts baffling and sometimes overwhelming.

I have a very clear memory of going to the grocery store about 12 years ago to pick up some Honey Nut Cheerios as a treat for the boys.  Looking for the cereal aisle I happened upon shelves and shelves of water.  Water!  I just stood there and stared.

I could not believe that people who lived in a country with wonderful tap water would buy that much water in plastic bottles!

Since then I have learned how damaging all those water bottles are: not to mention, how expensive they are!

The United States, a nation of good, clean tap water*  buys more bottled water per capita than any other place in the world:  167 bottles per year....50 billion plastic water bottles!  And only about 23% of those bottles are recycled, which means about 38 billion plastic water bottles were wasted.  

200 million tons of plastic water bottles are in the land fills waiting the 1,000 years to bio-degrade. If incinerated, their fumes are toxic.

As damaging as that is, it doesn't stop there by a long shot:

• 17 MILLION barrels of oil are used annually to make the U.S. consumption of plastic bottled water...enough to fuel 1.3 million cars or power 190,000 homes for a year!  
• Those 17 million barrels do not include the fuel needed to transport the bottles of water to market, to home, to the dump or recycling plant.
• It is estimated that it takes about 3 liters of water just to bottle 1 liter of water!
  
• Half of all bottled water is tap water.
• Tap water is more regulated than bottled water, so it is safer. 
• Drinking 8 glasses of water a day using tap water costs an average of $0.49/year while drinking that much bottled water would cost on average $1,400!   Save the money.  Hey!  Give it to the poor!

This is an easy one.  If you drink bottled water, quit.  Buy a bottle of your own and fill it up at home and refill it at work, in the gym, at rest areas,...well, you get the picture.  If you don't like the taste of your water, buy a filter.  So much of conserving, recycling, reusing has effort.  THIS actually takes less effort.  No shopping and hauling bottles of water.   Easy-Peazy!  And encourage others to do the same.

-Kathleen

*eliminating Flint, Michigan, and wells damaged by fracking

Water: the Gift of Life

Staying in California during last year's drought, I experience a concerted effort on the part of the state government to limit people's use of water.  Lawns were drying up and in Sacramento the city government was asking people to water their trees not their grass, because trees help hold in water and if the trees died...well, you get the picture.

Currently, 1.6 billion people live in countries and regions with absolute water scarcity and the number is expected to rise to 2.8 billion people by 2025.

One of Nicaragua's richest resources is its aquifer, the largest in Central America.  During the neo-liberal years when the government was trying to privatize everything (public schools, health care, electricity, etc.) they also tried to privatize water.  There was even talk of selling Nicaragua's water to the west coast of the  United States.  Fortunately the Nicaraguans rose up, hit the streets and blocked the privatization of its water.

Thankfully-- they did because after the last two years of drought, Nicaragua lost 60% of its surface water and 50% of its underground water.

With climate change, droughts are going to be a greater and greater threat to life in larger and larger areas of the world.  Our bodies are made up of 72% of water.  Polluting water and wasting water seems to me to be counter-productive to life.

And yet many U.S. politicians want to do away with the Environmental Protection Agency, while here in Nicaragua the two largest polluters of water, sugar production and gold mining, go unchecked.

I heard a college student talk about trying to make the campus more environmentally conscious by asking students to limit their showers to 20 minutes!  While I am not like one of our early volunteers when we ran shelters in NC who, I decided, could take a shower with a thimble of water; 20 minutes is a lot of water going down the drain.

What is it going to take for us to learn and change our ways?

-Kathleen

Food, the Hungry and Our Ozone

Mike peeling apples for the shelters

When we ran shelters in the U.S., people would clean out their freezers and pantries and give the contents to us.  I remember pulling out a package of meat labeled "Betsy" and REALLY hoping it was beef!

Over time, though, the food would get so freezer-burned that it was time for even us to toss it BUT we had to wait until Mike went on a trip, because Mike hates food waste...he is not wrong.

The facts given in this blog come from an article in The Guardian.   I strongly urge you to take the time and read the whole thing... here are highlights:

Half... HALF of all food produced in the United States is now thrown away!

Globally 1/3 of all food is wasted.  If all the food tossed in the world for a year were stacked in 20 meter dumpsters.  It would take 80 million dumpsters.  Piled on top of each other, the bins would be so high and long that they would go to the moon and encircle it! 

This is wrong.  In a world of hungry people, this is just plain wrong.

Why the extreme amount of waste? 

Farmers, merchants, and researchers report that we now demand flawless fruits and vegetables; therefore:

• farmers leave food rotting in their fields or haul imperfect food to a land fill if they cannot find cattle that will eat it;
• grocery stores throw away tons of good food because it will not sell;
• grocery stores also lock their dumpster bins to keep out people who would eat the food;
• restaurants throw food away when they could donate at least some of the uneaten food to shelters or just serve smaller servings;
• people at home throw mind boggling amounts of food away instead of figuring out ways to use left-overs in cooking or refreshing food that might have gone stale.

Old food in land fills causes methane gas that contributes to the depletion of our ozone... and heats up the planet.  Methane gas is more harmful to our ozone than the carbon monoxide created by transporting the food and all the garbage.  Dealing with garbage is getting to a crisis level... polluting water and air.

How is food dealt with here in Nicaragua? 

Most grocery stores, markets, and restaurants sell their bad food to pig farmers.  Most people who shop in markets or grocery stores know that food is not perfect and will buy blemished fruits and vegetables.  

Long ago I learned how to use leftovers creatively, cooking for shelter guests on next to nothing for a food budget .  It became a contest for me... how to take 5 servings of chicken cordon blue from Davidson College, 2 frozen chicken legs, 50 ears of cattle corn, and 60 pounds of almost rotten tomatoes to make one yummy casserole for 70 people.

Photo of Nicaraguan market by Jay Mock

Here I have learned that almost any vegetable when looking limp and sad will perk right up in water.  Slice lettuce, cabbage, carrots, etc.  put them in cool water and in an hour they are good as new and a wonderful salad is served!

We frequently end up with  leftovers, because when we have delegations it is a crap shoot as to how much they will eat... sometimes even I cannot use them all.  When that happens we give food to our staff, to neighbors in the village, and IF it goes bad then into the compost pile it goes.  None of our food goes into a land fill.

There is no reason for the amount of food that is wasted and with the number of hungry growing and the ozone shrinking... the only right action is to change our food habits and advocate for better food policies.

-Kathleen