Hun? 
How can that be?
Didn't Bill Clinton early in his presidency... 
use that loathed American military to invade Haiti and set up a Clintonista Liberal Paradise that would outlast the White Man's evil democracy in America?
Posted on 02/16/2008 11:31:16 AM PST by IssuesOriented
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.
The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.
"When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times a day," Charlene said. Her baby, named Woodson, lay still across her lap, looking even thinner than the slim 6 pounds 3 ounces he weighed at birth.
Though she likes their buttery, salty taste, Charlene said the cookies also give her stomach pains. "When I nurse, the baby sometimes seems colicky too," she said.
Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertilizer, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well.
The problem is particularly dire in the Caribbean, where island nations depend on imports and food prices are up 40 percent in places.
The global price hikes, together with floods and crop damage from the 2007 hurricane season, prompted the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency to declare states of emergency in Haiti and several other Caribbean countries. Caribbean leaders held an emergency summit in December to discuss cutting food taxes and creating large regional farms to reduce dependence on imports.
At the market in the La Saline slum, two cups of rice now sell for 60 cents, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a year ago. Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate, and even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost $1.50. Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs $5, the cookie makers say.
Still, at about 5 cents apiece, the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples. About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.
Merchants truck the dirt from the central town of Hinche to the La Saline market, a maze of tables of vegetables and meat swarming with flies. Women buy the dirt, then process it into mud cookies in places such as Fort Dimanche, a nearby shanty town.
Carrying buckets of dirt and water up ladders to the roof of the former prison for which the slum is named, they strain out rocks and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt. Then they pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun.
The finished cookies are carried in buckets to markets or sold on the streets.
A reporter sampling a cookie found that it had a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.
Assessments of the health effects are mixed. Dirt can contain deadly parasites or toxins, but can also strengthen the immunity of fetuses in the womb to certain diseases, said Gerald N. Callahan, an immunology professor at Colorado State University who has studied geophagy, the scientific name for dirt-eating.
Haitian doctors say depending on the cookies for sustenance risks malnutrition.
"Trust me, if I see someone eating those cookies, I will discourage it," said Dr. Gabriel Thimothee, executive director of Haiti's health ministry.
Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven children. Her family also eats them.
"I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these," she said. "I know it's not good for me."
The slums in Santo Domingo are still pretty bad.
But the inflow of money from tourism and expatriate Dominicans in the U.S. has changed things. The airport is now quite nice, and a lot of the thug customs types were replaced by fresh looking kids wearing nice uniforms. And they don't dream up reasons for you to hand over $10 anymore...someone realized that shaking people down right at the entry to the country actually deters biz.
So it is far better than Haiti. But still a place to be very careful in, and nowhere near as nice as say, San Juan.
Are you saying we paid $600 million for a nice paint job? That building replaced one blown up in 1912 and was built after the US Marine occupation began in 1915. Or did we pay for it twice?
Perpetual victims — just like the New Orleans Superdome crown, only more resourceful.
crowd
I suspect the eastern end of the island is more suitable for farming which helps as well.
just like mexico. there is a class of really rich and the rest are dirt poor.
just like mexico. there is a class of really rich and the rest are dirt poor.
or maybe we are being lied to and no aid was ever sent.
hard time coming to grips with a black ruled country that clearly has no one else to blame but itself.
Amazing, isn’t it? Try this word game—substitute responsible and caring for white. Substitute selfish trash for black. Gives you a whole different perspective.
Trash can be either color, and so can responsible and caring. Always wondered why there were no successful countries run by blacks, and I am not being racist in any way. I imagine the guy you met got quite a rude awakening.
Still much safer than consuming "food" imported from China.
P.S. we have people in our own nation starving as well.
P.S. we have people in our own nation starving as well.”
____________________________
Let them starve....there is more opportunity here than anywhere in the world. Bad choices, quite simple.
I would suggest use a condumn.
Hun? How can that be?
Didn't Bill Clinton early in his presidency... use that loathed American military to invade Haiti and set up a Clintonista Liberal Paradise that would outlast the White Man's evil democracy in America?
Geez, when I saw this thread I was horrified, feeling sympathy and empathy for these poor, desperate fellow human beings. Eating dirt?!
But, after reading these postings in response I now see the humorous side of it. It’s really pretty funny!
Thanks guys. I feel much better.
  |
Hmmm... If eating dirt comes from Satanism and voodoo, what's our deal?! |
Better tell the men to STOP R--PING.
Don’t worry help is on the way with Barak and Al sharpton in the lead and our tax dollars in tow!
Not much else to do there. No TV. No internet.
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