Wastage

In Haiti, some people are resorting to eat dirt as desperate measures to fill their bellies. The country's poorest can't even afford a plate of rice. At school, we throw away loads of food each week-- from candies to bread to pastries to pasta to cakes to meat-- you name it, we toss quite a lot of it to the nearest bin almost all the time. Our kids' usual line at the table is " I don't like it," so we throw away the food because no one else will eat it and will just go stale.

Such wastage was hard to get used to. I'm still not used to it, and probably will never ever get used to it. I think of the street children in Cebu everytime I dump slices of strawberry cakes in the bin, of faceless and nameless children who probably will never know how a chocolate tastes like.

I remember my Mom used to tell us she and her two other siblings only get to have margarine on their bread at Christmastime. Even A's grandma has a story to tell. They used to be so poor they couldn't afford to have foil-wrapped chocolates hanging on their Christmas tree, a Czech custom. These stories, along with the thought of those millions of faceless and nameless children, flash on my mind each time I take hesitant steps towards our orange bin.

Our kids at school are oblivious to how fortunate they are. I wonder, if miles away from here like in Haiti, the less fortunate ones have any idea that a world where such unimaginable wastage on food does exist.