so, i leave in 41 days.
i swear this isn't one of those blogs that i'm going to update continuously with countdowns and cute pictures.... however, i was spending some time today reading about malawi and it's history and leadership and agriculture and all the kind of stuff i would have made fun of someone for caring about 10 years ago.
i stumbled across an independent news site that was written by someone from malawi, and through that ended up finding a video about the issues facing malawi in relation to the tobacco industry. turns out malawi's number one export is tobacco, but due to unfair world prices on tobacco (caused by big tobacco flooding the market and dropping the prices), the farmers and land owners are not making enough to live off, which in turns creates a space for child labor and poor working conditions just so the people higher up on the chain make some money.
i know, i know.. same old story. some sob story about poor people on another continent who are getting screwed over by the global economy... old news, buy a pair of toms.
but i can't just ignore it. and here's why...
i smoke.
which means that i am contributing to the number one issue facing the economy of the country that i plan to go and live and have a (hopefully) positive affect on for the next few months. but this is where the biggest problem comes in... what can you do? does me not smoking really change anything (besides the obvious health risks that a large number of my friends and family would be happy to remind me of)?
it doesn't. i know it doesn't.. but how can i continue ignorantly consuming a product that is causing harm to people? that is the issue facing our planet right now... we are so disconnected from the effects that the choices we make have; and should we even make that connection, we are faced with the hopelessness of the fact that this is a global issue, and can one person's choices change anything?
it's easy to see the effects of your choices when the person is standing right in front of you. if i eat my room mate's ice cream sandwich out of the freezer... i can see the impact of that first hand. but often it's hard to see (or we simply don't want to see) that the ice cream sandwich itself was most likely made with cocoa that child labor or even child slavery harvested.
i don't have the answers... but what i do know, is that everyday i make choices that effect this planet negatively on a social, environmental, economic and spiritual level... and that i would like to minimize those negative impacts, or even make them positive ones.
so i guess it does matter. once you know that the tobacco you smoke, the chocolate you eat, the coffee you drink, the gas your fill your car with, the clothing you wear; all have directly impacted someone... how can it be ignored?
sorry this got long, and turned into a rant... it's weird typing something that is not directed at any specific person but yourself. but i hope this at least gives you an idea as to what my thought process is going into this trip... i doubt i'll update a tonne more before i take off...
love.
p.s. if you want to watch the video i referenced that started this whole verbal vomitting session... it's here
