Gooddammit.
I mean, I’m not super pressed about it, but it would have been cool to go to some of the celebrations in Cotonou. And there were a lot. Did you know that 74% of Beninese women are illiterate? And the enfant mortality rate is almost 1 in 10 (93 out of 1000, actually)? And that the AIDS rate is at 3.6% and rising?
Sometimes it’s easy to forget these basic facts in my comfortable city apartment. And I face overwhelming poverty every day. I bet it’s even easier to forget in comfortable American homes. I’d forget too. But sometimes it bears remembering.
Happy belated International Women’s Day.
Hi T. I must politely disagree with you. I don’t think aids, poverty, infant mortality, illiteracy, etc., are easy to forget in American homes. It may not touch us as directly as it does you, but that is our choice. Plus with the American media: TV, newspaper, the internet, magazines, you don’t forget the hardships and trials experiences by other people, both in this country and others. That is why 85 million American’s give a 1/4 of a trillion dollars every year to various charities. People scratch their liberal itch in various ways.