Nov 24

A short update for those of you who made donations for the group of women in the Philippines that I posted about on Blog Action Day…

Yesterday was the day that the women gathered and the gifts were distributed. I am so grateful to those of you who generously donated money to help out people who really need it. I know some of you reached beyond personal or religious beliefs in order to do so and I think that is a true example of what it means to be a global citizen and to care for your fellow humans. These twelve families were blessed by your generosity and touched that people around the world would care about their needs. Thank you for taking action! You are amazing!

Here is a picture of the whole group of them in the home of my friend Jessica and her husband as they celebrated together. Enjoy the faces of those you have helped!

Oct 26

A friend recently introduced me to The Shape of a Mother, a website for women to share pictures of their bodies, the good, the bad and what many of us perceive as ugly.  Here is what the creator of the site says:

It is my dream, then, to create this website where women of all ages, shapes, sizes and nationalities can share images of their bodies so it will no longer be secret. So we can finally see what women really look like sans airbrushes and plastic surgery. I think it would be nothing short of amazing if a few of our hearts are healed, or if we begin to cherish our new bodies which have done so much for the human race. What if the next generation grows up knowing how normal our bodies are? How truly awesome would that be?

I have to say I was a bit skeptical at first. It felt a bit creepy, looking at these very intimate pictures. I didn’t know what value there would be in seeing other women’s bodies who, like me, were ravaged by childbearing. In my head I “knew” other women out there look like me. But in mere moments I was completely hooked. I spent half an hour straight just looking at pictures and reading the thoughts and feelings of the women who posted them and so closely identifying with many of them. The good and the bad. The shame and frustration of the Lose Weight Exercise gain, the stretch marks, the sagging and other side effect of childbearing. But also the joy and power in knowing the strength of my own body and seeing it work so effectively to create a new life. 

Most of all, this site is like media desensitization. Instead of coming away depressed, I felt something I rarely feel: normal.  Absolutely, totally, one hundred percent NORMAL.  I looked at my own body in the mirror and thought to myself “I have a normal body. I look like most of the bodies I saw today.  I have nothing to be ashamed of.” Though I believed those ideas in my head before visiting The Shape of a Mother, I now believe them in my heart.

I also came to appreciate more fully that almost every woman feels the same way about her postpartum body. Even the ones who I would personally deem attractive or thin or beautiful. No detail escapes our scrutiny. No change is unnoticed. None of us seem to be immune. How easy it is for each one of us to feel we are somehow different from everyone else and that we are the only one who experiences our feelings. The Shape of a Mother reminded me I am not alone and that there is a sisterhood of women who have the same struggles.

I know these issues apply to women who have not been pregnant, too, and I think it is just fabulous that someone is trying to remove the shroud of shame and embarrassment that so many of us feel about our bodies in an age when we are bombarded with images that look so different from what we see in the mirror. I hope you will check it out. Whenever I am feeling down on myself about the shape of my body, I know I’ll be going back to remind myself what normal really looks like.

Oct 15

In what some would call a providential occurrence, it so happens that today, the day on which I had planned this very post, is also Blog Action Day! It is so encouraging to see people using their blogs to speak up about important issues and to make a difference in the world because of this internet-community.

I have a friend from college who works with her husband in the Philippines. They have both done some teaching there (he still does, she is currently busy taking care of their new baby) and Jessica works with many local women doing a variety of activities, both religious and practical in nature.  Jessica recently contacted me and some other people regarding a group of twelve different women who she sees regularly and for whom she would like to grant some “wishes” as a way of showing them that people around the world care for their well-being.

I have never used this blog to ask for money before. And I don’t intend to do it frequently.  But this time I had to ask.  These dreams demand to be acknowledged and that’s what I hope to do by sharing some of them here:

“…my third wish is water: I would like water [installed in my home] because I have no money to buy water to my neighborhood. 1 peso for each bucket. but it is heavy but I cannot afford to install water” [cost to make this dream come true: $80]

“my third wish is for Restroom…everytime I feel to go to rest room I  have to go to my sister-in-law’s house, but her house is far from my house. I cannot make a temporary [restroom] by my home because we live by the river and the ground erodes so it is not save. For the [restroom] I need a hollow block and 6 pieces of cement; 300 pieces hollow block; 10 pieces round bar; 1 toilet bowl; 2 cubics sand and gravel mix; 3 pieces for wall” [cost to make this dream come true: $140]

“…[I wish] for a foam mattress to sleep on.” [cost to make this dream come true: $30]

“A bicycle. My wish is for my son to go to school at high school because sometimes he is absent because we don’t have money to pay the fare for him to get to school…” [cost to make this dream come true: $50]

“A gas range… I wish because I always cook with firewood three times a day.” [cost to make this dream come true: $80]

“Here is my wish: The roof of our home.” [cost to make this dream come true: $80]

“My wish is to have a permanent home for my family. A home for my three children together with my husband….We don’t have a permanent house to stay and we don’t have enough money to build a home just because we can’t afford yet to attempt all the materials for needs, and also my husband only working at all to support our daily needs…” [cost to make this dream come true: $1-2000]

“I wish…a floor for my house, because there are holes and sometimes the bamboo breaks when we walk on it.” [cost to make this dream come true: $50]

“I wish for…one sack rice. Even for us 1 kilo is expensive and we have to buy rice every day. It is hard to buy when there is not stable work for my husband.” [cost to make this dream come true: $35]

“My second wish is washing machine because sometimes I feel so tired to wash my clothes but if we have a washing [machine] for my family I don’t have to wash it.” [cost to make this dream come true: $100]

There you have it, people. Their biggest wishes are so simple. Food, clean and accessible water, a roof overhead and walls to shelter them. Almost every one of these twelve women asked for money to make repairs to their homes and/or roofs and some small things that would make their lives easier like furniture or a washing machine or the money to start a small business or raise animals to sell.

It’s not often that you hear the voice of poverty right from the lips of those who live it each and every day. So today, I’m asking you to hear it.  

I know everyone has their own causes and I’m sure you all support your different charities so there is no judgment if you choose not to do this. But for those who might be looking for an opportunity to make a real difference to a real person, to hear their need and say “I can fix this one thing for someone”, here is your chance.

Donations for this project will be made through an organization called Wycliffe Bible Translators. Now, I know not everyone agrees with or believes in religious organizations. But I can personally guarantee that any money you donate will go directly to one of twelve women in order to fulfill their most basic needs and to lift the burden of poverty from their shoulders.  You will get a charitable donation receipt for your donation and you can send a cheque to either the Canadian or American branches of Wycliffe. 

This is not about ideology or theology. This is about real women suffering because of a lack of money.  This is not about who is right and who is wrong. This is about being a citizen in a global community where no one deserves to live without enough food or a proper shelter over their heads.  This is about making a difference in the life of a fellow human being and I am inviting you to participate with me.

If you would like to give some money to one of these very deserving Filippino women please email me at Shannon@livinginthegray.com and I can email you directions on where to send your cheque and what other information needs to be included in order for the donation to get to the right person. The gifts are meant to be given to the women on November 19, so the sooner the cheques are sent in, the better. If you have questions for me, or for Jessica, who will be in charge of getting the money to the women, please don’t hesitate to ask (you can contact me for Jessica’s email or go straight to her blog).

Poverty is real. Today you heard (ok, read) it’s voice. Let’s use this blog thing we do to do more today.

Aug 30

We’ve had such a stupid week that I have neglected to say what an awesome weekend we had pretending we are still kidless and young enough to rock and roll all night and party evah-ree-day.  Some Canadian friends came down to visit us (it is SO WEIRD to be classifying friends by what country they’re from!) and it was so much fun. While we’ve been having a good time doing the tourist thing here in Boston, we’ve really been missing spending time with good friends who we know and who know us. 

To top off the fun of having our friends here the clouds parted and the angels sang and Tina offered to babysit so we could go out sans kids which was great because we basically acted like kids the whole night. 

First, we giggled at the name of a Chinese restaurant because we’re all 8 years old….

 

Then we went to a bar that had it’s menu in the form of a giant periodic table and lab stools for seating because the four of us are HUGE GEEKS and that’s exactly the kind of gimmick that catches our attention.

Then we annoyed our server because we aren’t familiar with American beers. Once we got the beer we cracked open a nice cold can of Canadian superiority over the lower alcohol content of sissy American beers. Ok, well I didn’t actually have any beer because I’m a big baby and only drink alcoholic drinks that taste like sugar fruity and sweet. 

But it was so much fun to just let loose and laugh! S and T, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR VISITING! And T, thanks for this “Blue Steel” picture. Because it makes me happy every time I look at it.

Know what else made me happier than is reasonable? Spending an hour in a drug store investigating products that are not sold in Canada or that are different between Canada and the US, and having friends who agreed with us when we said “That is just SO WEIRD.” Like why the unit price is posted for every item? Like I care that I’m getting the best deal per pound on deodorant? We did spend a long time searching for the item in the store with the most expensive unit price (I think it was condoms, if you’re wondering). It may have been kind of a lame and geeky night out. But I embrace it!

The next day we went to the beach where we quickly buried our kids in the sand so wouldn’t have to pay too much attention to them:

 

But when we started burying our friends in the sand, too, people started to look at us funny.  

Still, a good time was had by all. My son personally inspected each grain of sand and pronounced it acceptable.

Then we decided to have dinner at the “Cheers Bar” (the outside of the bar was filmed as the outside of the bar in the hit TV show Cheers, the inside was not shown in the show, nor does the inside resemble the set of Cheers) …

…which is not actually called “Cheers” but is actually called “The Bull & Finch Pub“…

…and where everyone did not actually know our name so much as want to take our money. But the service was great, the food was good (and reasonably priced) and we had a fantastic time together.

Our friends cheered up immensely and it is only because I had such a FABULOUS weekend that I did not reach through the phone and pull out the spleen of our contact at the moving company when he told us that our belongings will now not be reaching us until September 11. And by September 11, I’m pretty sure he means December.