Reflection:

"Poor Haitians Eat Mud Cookies to Survive"

Hazen A. Mole
(BSED 2-Mathematics)

" Haiti is the kind of place that breaks your heart,.. even as it fills it up "

~ Unknown

Can you imagine being so poor and so hungry that you have no choice but to eat mud?

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. The small island nation of Haiti relies
heavily on food imports, but with food scare and soaring prices, Haiti's poorest can't afford of buying
even a daily plate of rice. Because of this instances, some take desperate measures to fill their bellies, so
many Haitians are forced to create their own food from mud to resist hunger. It's not uncommon to see
women grinding dirt and water into a fine paste and make mud cookies out of it. The cookies are made of
butter, salt and dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau. They taste bad and they are bad in the
digestive tract, but the locals insist of eating this to keep their stomach full. Eventhough, it holds a little
nutritional value, but still it manage to keep Haiti's poor alive. Haitians regularly eat cookies. Sadly, this
kind of experience isn't quite as enticing.

Haiti is one of the world's poorest nations, with over 80% of the population living below the poverty line.
This leaves the starving locals desperate for sustenance and creating cookies from mud simply to survive.

People always think in an abstract way - for example, the Haitians, as huge masses of the suffering poor -
it is easy for some to draw conclusions and to talk some stuff that aren't respectful to human dignity
without even knowing how hard for them to survive life. Despite of the difficult circumstances, the
Haitians themselves are glad that they are alive just as we who are more materially privileged and have
less life-threatening problems are glad that we exist, except some who are still uncontented of what they
have. Always think of this; " If you ever feel poor, just remember there are people out there whose diet
hugely relies on eating pottery ", so, always be thankful of the tangible and intangible materials you have
because not all of us are given a comfortable life.
In my own insights, poverty shares a greatest role on this kind of circumstances. Poverty has been called "
the world's more ruthless killer and the greatest cause of suffering on earth". Poor people can die for
several more reasons than non-poor people, such as a lack of food, diminished resistance to diseases as a
result of inadequate diet. Poverty is one of the greatest ethical challenge the world is facing today and the
most urgent moral challenges humanity is facing. Poverty violates moral values about what constitutes a
minimally decent human life broadly shared throughout the world and especially the standards for human
living. This is how devastating the effects of poverty can be for individual human beings and why poverty
is such an affront to a person's dignity. Although some people who suffer deeply from poverty are
victims, others show resilience by making clever plans in their efforts to survive. The fact that individuals
or groups of poor people develop complex and innovative strategies to survive poverty and adversity does
not minimize the harms poverty inflicts on them, nor does it avert the terrible consequences poverty has
on people who cannot successfully ward off its ravages. The bottom line is that poor people try their best
"to cope with poverty, to resist it, and escape it" just like the Haitians.

" I have never witnessed poverty like I did in Haiti. The kind that is so deep and wide-reaching that it
feels impossible to make a difference. But I found that lives can and are being changed. It may take a lot
of work and time but concern has, and continues to make serious progress because they stayed long after
the world move on."

~ Toni Collete

"Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit."

~UNKNOWN