On Friday our class went to the JBS Slaughterhouse in Plainwell, Michigan. I was unable to attend because I had class but luckily I was able to hear all about the experience on Monday from my classmates. Also, we had a guest speaker come in who was able to tell us about his past experiences working at JBS. I found all of this to be really interesting and I really wish I could have attended the trip. A lot of people I say that to think it is weird that I wish I could have gone, but in reality when will I ever have that opportunity again? I know that going on that trip could very well have skewed my outlook on eating meat but sometimes I think that is what we need to happen in order to realize certain things in life. I am not saying I want to be grossed out but it is one thing to hear about what I am eating and it is another thing to see first hand where my food comes from. There were many pieces of information that my classmates spoke of from the trip that sounded awful, such as still being able to smell the scent of the blood at the slaughterhouse, I definitely would not want that memory to stick. Also, hearing about how the cows died was sad to hear, but at the same time it is somewhat what I expected to happen and I was happy to know that it was being handled in a humane manner. However, I would not have necessarily wanted to see that...
There were many really interesting questions posed by my classmates during our discussion about the trip. One student brought up how all of the employees are given knives and what would happen if a strike broke out, would that be really dangerous? Also, we discussed how the employees are affected by the constant killing of animals and how do they deal with doing and being around that all day everyday... Another thing I did not realize is that every part of the cows is sold somewhere, even the blood! I could not think of what they did with the blood, but then our guest speaker informed us that it is used in cosmetics and many other things that we use on a regular basis. It is so interesting to hear about stuff that I use and would have never guessed some of the ingredients. I am slightly bothered by some of what I have learned but I am also happy to have gained a better understanding of everything too. I would rather know where my food and other products come from and be appalled than be completely clueless.
I really hope that the next trip my class takes I will be able to attend because I really felt like I missed out and I would like to gain more from these experiences!
I read the beginning and the very end of The Jungle, reading the end was a bit difficult at first because I did not know the reasons behind why certain things were happening to Jurgis and also I was confused as to where the rest of the characters had gone to because it seemed as if Jurgis was the only person left in the beginning of chapter 27. As the chapters progressed I obtained a better understanding of what was happening, also reading blogs from my classmates that read earlier chapters gave me a great insight as to what was going on!
Anyway, from my own reading I learned of the new hardships Jurgis had to deal with. Jurgis had become unemployed and was searching for a new job but did not have any luck. He originally lost his job for three months due to an injury and was then not welcomed back after his injury healed. This caused great difficulty for Jurgis for he was barely finding ways to obtain food everyday.
I learned that in earlier chapters Jurgis and Ona had finally had the chance to have a proper wedding and then gave birth to a healthy child. After some time, Ona had died during the birth of their second child and, if that was not enough, Jurgis' son had drowned. Once it had seemed like things could not get worse Jurgis decided to leave Marija and Elzbieta, this all happened before chapter 27.
Where I picked up Jurgis had become a beggar and a thief, he of course did not have a choice for it was not his fault that he could not find work. After he had spent his last pennies on stale beer he was left to literally beg at people on the street for money for a meal or whatever he could get out of them. One evening he was going to beg from a woman and then realized that he knew her! After a short conversation between the two, the woman gave Jurgis directions to the home that Marija was living at and he immediately went to see her... After arrival to the home, the police had showed up and were arresting everyone. This was confusing at first for Jurgis, and myself, but it soon became clear that Marija was living in a brothel. Jurgis was, of course, taken aback by this new job Marija had attained, but she claimed that it was fine and that she was making plenty of money and that she needed to in order to put her family to sleep at night with food in their bellies and a roof over their heads. I found this segment to be the most interesting and the most difficult to understand. I was sickened to learn that the women in the brothel were drugged everyday and made victim to the madame who ran the house. Some girls were drugged up so much that they literally had no idea as to what was going on and most became so drugged that their addictions took place and caused them to go into much debt. The debt the women faced was so great that they were basically blackmailed into staying at the house. It really does sadden me to know that there are places like that, even now, where women are taken complete advantage of and most of the time drawn into because they think they will be doing something different or they were kidnapped.
There were many other things that happened at the end of this book but I really found the prostitution and the lifestyles of these poor begging people to be so sad and important to understand.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is about immigrants coming to the United States and the hardships that they faced when trying to find work, a home to live in, establishing themselves in a new community, and much more.
Chapter two is where we started our reading for this book and it begins with a family from Lithuania moving to Chicago, United States. They moved there because they heard about the glories of America and wanted to experience the freedom and lifestyles they heard they could obtain there. Once the family of twelve moved to America they instantly faced difficult times, at first they could not find their destination, Chicago, and when they did, it was not what they were expecting. Luckily, after brief searching, the family found Jokubas Szedvilas, a Lithuanian immigrant who owns a deli on Halsted Street in Chicago. They were searching for Szedvilas because they had heard about how he moved here and became very well off in America and he was partially their inspiration to leave their homeland. In the beginning of their time in Chicago they were renting a small place to live, however they were paying $9.00 a month to live in conditions that were not suitable for such a large family. Once most of the family had found work they learned about the potential of buying a home and having the option of paying it off in increments of $12.00 a month after the initial $300.00 down payment. This sounded like such a great deal at first that they jumped on it and went to speak with the man they could purchase a home from. He explained to them that the houses would not be on the market for very long so they had to make their decision quickly, this stressed the family out because they had difficulty communicating with English speaking people and they also did not have very much money to work with at first. Finally, the family decided to look at a home and, although it was not everything that they had hoped for, decided to make the purchase. However, the actual time of deed signing was very stressful, they were very afraid that they were being mislead and had trouble deciding if this was a good idea, until they acquired a lawyer, who ended up making the decision more of a stressor than something exciting, and they accepted the offer. Afterwards, the decision seemed like a terrible idea and there was a lot of regret, until another lawyer was consulted and they realized that the deal was accurate to what they were told in the beginning and the home was theirs, they actually had a home of their own!
Finding work was another big obstacle that the family faced, they had to take jobs that did not pay the best but they were happy to have obtained anything they could get. One of the main characters, Jurgis Rudkus, acquired a job fairly quickly at the Durham meatpacking industry. This was a good job for him at first because, for one it was a job and he needed one desperately, it payed okay and he was able to work a lot of hours. However, after a short period of time he began to realize the many downfalls of the meatpacking industry and this started to affect his outlook on the wonders of living in America... The industry was dirty, dangerous, and the employers were not very kind to the immigrant workers.
Overall, the first few chapters of this book really emphasize the struggles that immigrants faced when coming to America and the difficult adjustments they had to overcome.
Here we are in this wonderful country, sitting in our warm homes and probably thinking about what delicious item might be for dinner tonight. Well, this is not the case for everyone, there are many people in America who are also wondering what might be for dinner but that is because they do not know how they may eat tonight. In 2012, 49 million American lived in food insecure homes, this is a very large number when you consider how many people there are that waste food on a regular basis...
The topic of my main concern is the health and lifestyle of college students, the future people of our country, my own fellow classmates, and the people who are facing such tough times only because they are following the role that society puts upon them. In our generation it is taught that going to college is crucial and this is pretty accurate. If one does not have a college degree the chances of having a career that will support them and potential family is very limited. However, college students are becoming more and more poor just to attain this degree that seems to determine their future. The increase in tuition for colleges is decreasing but what students are actually paying to attend college is on the rise. The average student loan debt of a college student is $29,400, this is a hefty amount of debt for someone coming out of school and jumping into a career that they will likely have to climb up the pay scale in. With most students having this in mind they are trying to save their money, but saving is hard when there are fees such as book costs, supplies for school, room and board, transportation, and the big one, food. So many students are struggling to afford the necessities of college and are then left at the end of the night wondering how they will afford food for the week ahead...
For the sake of my fellow peers and the future leaders of our country, I propose an act to alleviate hunger among college students nation wide. Since there is so much food that is wasted everyday by those who can afford an abundance of food and because there are many students that find it easier and cheaper to retrieve their meals from restaurants and fast food joints, I propose the restaurant waste smoothie.
This is a very simple strategy and would help many people who find cost and time difficult things to overcome in their everyday lives. What would take place is as follows: when a meal is ordered at a restaurant and not finished the server is to empty the scraps off of the plates and dispose of them into the 'student waste box' and then every few hours, or when the box is full, the scraps within it will be blended together to make a smoothie. These smoothies will be distributed to the college students who are facing difficulty in acquiring meals that week.
There are many benefits to this program; first of all food waste will be diminished, second students can put their money towards school related necessities and not have to worry about becoming malnourished, and finally every meal is a surprise! Chances are that every smoothie will be packed with protein and other nutritional benefits that a striving student would need.
There are many times that it seems like 'bad things happen to good people', the story And the Earth Did not Devour Him portrays this relatable feeling in an eye opening way. Often I feel like the world is against me, there are many times that are very difficult, whether it be from the tedious tasks in school that I face every week or the hardships I face in my personal life. But in reality I have it pretty good. Yes, school is extremely tough at times but I know that is because I chose a very hard major and I realize that in choosing such a difficult career path I have to be able to face and endure tasks that I don't always want to do. Also, there are many hardships that make life seem really tough at times, but it is important to remember that we are not alone and that everyone has days where life seems a bit more difficult than others.
Last summer a friend of mine, one of the kindest and most giving people I know, was diagnosed with leukemia... I remember when I received the call giving me the terrible news, I had the biggest pit in my stomach and I immediately broke down, however after the feeling of sadness dissipated, I was left with a feeling of anger. My initial angry thought was "Why her? Why does someone, who is so sweet and full of kindness, deserve to be stricken with such a terrible illness?" It wasn't fair. It took me a while to get over that feeling of anger, I could not wrap my head around the reason my friend had leukemia... I realized after a while that it doesn't matter who you are or how you act in life, sometimes bad things just happen and we must take from that what we can. After finding out about my friends cancer I became more aware and thankful for my own health and the health of the rest of my friends and family, it made me realize that life cannot be taken for granted because we never know what is coming around the corner.
And the Earth Did not Devour Him is about a boy who faces the ever pondered question of why bad things really do happen to those who don't deserve them. His aunt and uncle had fallen ill and then his father and brother, he did not understand that sometimes things are out of our hands. This story saddend me because not only were good people getting sick but it was because they were forced to work in conditions that were not safe. They were not only undeserving of illness but I felt that they did not deserve to have to live the way they were. The life of these migrant workers is sad, they face hardships that I could not imagine entirely, no matter how hard I tried. I really did enjoy this story though because it brought those feelings I face into another perspective, I understand that although bad things can happen to anyone, no matter how much good karma should be on your side, when I face my own hardships that I do not think I deserve I should just be thankful for the good things I do have in my life. Also, I especially enjoyed the final paragraph to this story, it was about a boy wishing his life away just to know the ending. There are quite a few things that I am facing currently that I wish I knew the outcome of, such as what is going to happen in a couple months when I graduate from college and where will I be, literally I have no idea where graduation will take me. However, as much as I long to know what is going to happen in my near future, I also want to be sure not to wish the time I have now away. Time is a very precious thing, it is baffling to realize that we really do not know what kind of time we are dealing with, our lives could change drastically any day and there is no way of predicting what could happen. I interpreted this particular reading in my own way and took from it that it is important to be thankful for what I have right now in my present life and for the people I love and care about, for anything could happen tomorrow.
The story Cajas de carton by Francisco Jimenez was about him and his family and how they had to move around for work. It has been made clear to me, from all of the literature in this course, that in order for many of these people to make ends meet they have to constantly search for work and many times move from place to place. There are many people who choose careers that require them to move around and they are happy with that, but the difference between those people and this family is that the Jimenez family did not choose this life, they are forced to live this way, and they are not happy. The thought of having to pick up everything and leave at any moment saddens me, I could not imagine coming home from school one day and having my whole house packed up into boxes and having to just leave! The worst part of this story was when Francisco had finally felt happy and his teacher was going to teach him how to play the trumpet and then he was so excited to tell his family but when he arrived home he was sadly surprised with everything being packed up and it was time for them to move again...
Rigoberta Menchú writes a testimony of herself and her people, she stresses that it is not only her life that she illustrates to us because she did not learn throughout her life alone and she explains that her personal experience is the reality of a whole people. Growing up in Guatemala was very tough for the residents there that did not have much money, they were not able to attend school, in order to get to town they would have to walk very long distances, and they weren't even guaranteed their own home. Rigoberta's parents moved to Chimel in 1960 but were unable to build a home there at the time because of funding so they cultivated the land but remained at their small home in town. Eventually they were forced out of their small home in town by some ladino families, further in her writings Rigoberta explains that not all ladinos are bad and that the bad ones are the ones that know how to talk and steal from the people, and they had to move to the land they found in Chimel. Unfortunately after clearing the land they were unable to get a good yield of crops for about eight or nine years, during this time they had to work in the fincas, where times were very tough.
Working in the fincas brought great hardship to many people, even the ride there was brutal during the time they were stuck in the lorry and could not use the bathroom or bathe and everyone became dirty and were burned from the sun. Rigoberta tells about her first day picking cotton and how afterwards, that night, she discovered that everyone's faces, including her own, were covered in Mosquitos and this made her panic. She says, "That was our world. I felt that it would always be the same, always the same. It hadn't ever changed." This makes me feel so terrible for her, her family, and all of her people that she is able to speak for... Of course we are all aware of the different hardships that people around the world are facing but to read just how awful it really is, it is quite troubling. She carried on to explain how everything was deducted from their pay at the fincas and that they would have to stay to work extra days for resting or times they could not work whether it was their choice or not. When Rigoberta was a bit older she was sent to the capital after the landowner of the finca had asked her parents for her. To think that someone could just be sent away is a terrible thought... I could not imagine someone asking my parents for me and to then actually be taken away! I think that this story has a lot to teach everyone and it brings a lot of different things into a new perspective.
The biggest lesson I took from reading about Rigoberta and her people is to be thankful for everything I have and to try my hardest not to take anything for granted because I really am very fortunate in so many different aspects. As of right now my biggest stressor is school, most of the people in Guatemala could not even attend school, and this makes me realize that I have it really good and I need to always remember that before I complain about something silly and not worthy of a complaint at all!
"I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve four females." What...? As I started reading A Modest Proposal, by Dr. Jonathan Swift, I was confused due to the way it was worded, it is from 1729 after all, but then I reached the above quote and thought that there was no way I was interpreting this correctly. The beginning of the reading stated, "For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick." After reading this I thought perhaps this reading would be about finding a way for children to work or help their parents, I certainly did not think that it would be about eating them...
I did not realize at first that this was a satire... I thought this was some sick joke, but not really a joke, I honestly believed as I was reading this story that the author was twisted and was actually proposing that people should sell their children as food... I was baffled. Actually I was so shocked by what I was reading that I stopped and looked at my friend, whom I was studying with, and started to explain what I was reading with utter disgust. Luckily, before writing this blog post, I researched Jonathan Swift and his "Modern Proposal" and realized that, thankfully, he was not serious about everything he shared and that he actually was trying to make a point.
After I understood the meaning of this story I, not only felt a lot better but, was able to make sense of what he was trying to get at. Without previous knowledge, about the mistreatment England posed upon Ireland, I can understand why many folks would be confused and sickened by this satire, however once the background behind this satire is understood it is obvious why Jonathan Swift wrote the way he did. He explained his proposal in this satire in such a way to make jabs at England and to express the absurdities that people considered solutions to many problems that were being faced at the time. He was especially insulted by projects that tried to fix population and labour issues with a simple cure-all solution, according to the information I found on Wikipedia. I normally do not ever use Wikipedia for information because it is not always accurate, however I found it to be quite helpful to better understand the different viewpoints on this reading.
Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes is an organization built upon the vision of working toward a hunger-free community. This organization was started in 1982 by churches in downtown Kalamazoo in order to feed people who were in need of assistance. Since 1982 they have expanded tremendously and now serve all of Kalamazoo county. The mission of Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes is to feed hungry people and engage the community in the fight to end hunger. I think this is such a wonderful thing to have in any area, especially where there are people in need. The values of KLF include respect, diversity and inclusion, stewardship and accountability, integrity, collaboration, urgency, and service. The strategic commitments of KLF are to provide high quality food, to develop high quality client access and support, to nurture the volunteer base, to market their services and their mission, and to improve their efficiency and effectiveness.
In order for food dollars to be stretched further which secures a multitude of food resources at a minimal cost, KLF works with local partners such as the Food Bank of South Central Michigan, this partnership procures low-cost foods. The way that KLF works is really awesome, they receive food from donations through the community and large drives throughout the year. They distribute over 2 million pounds of food annually, including nutritious food. Money is needed to run this wonderful organization because they need to pay their staff, pay for electricity, and pay for the operations of their trucks each week. Also, in order to have nutritious food readily available money is needed. They offer volunteer opportunities and other events throughout the year. An upcoming event is the Good Food Roundtable, which is hosted by Good Food Kalamazoo, a coalition of food and hunger organizations. This event is taking place on Tuesday, February 11, 2014.
What KLF does is really amazing because there are so many people out there in need and to have an organization that cares so much about their community is really great. The organization seems to try very hard to better themselves every year, for example in 2012 nearly 127,000 people received food through the Grocery Pantry Program, which is the largest of their programs. The amount of people that received food in 2012 increased by 13% since 2011, this just goes to show how much hard work KLF is putting in, and it is all to help out their community!!
On the site for Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes there is a spot where it displays Hunger Stories which are quotes from people who have been helped by this organization. There are many people who find it difficult to ask for help in times of need but KLF makes it easy for them to find the help they need and to feel welcomed. One person wrote, "KLF volunteers always made me feel like somebody instead of nothing." To read this on their site it really amazing, it just goes to show how caring the people there are even on top of already doing such a good deed.
The Dinner of Trimalchio was a very interesting story within The Satyricon. I started reading this with much difficulty due to the way it was written and the vocabulary used throughout the story, however once I got through the first few pages I got the hang of the reading. I found this story to be very interesting in how it was told and how I could relate the present to it.
Trimalchio was the host of the dinner and he was a man of great riches and a heavy lack of manners. He put on a great feast for his noble guests however he did not pay much attention to them for he seemed to think that he was better than everyone. I am sure this is what he felt. Trimalchio did not act to please people with anything but to show off what riches he possessed. He did a very good job of this, for example he served wine that was hundreds of years old and used slaves to serve everything.
The dinner itself was exquisite beyond belief, there were six courses made up of extravagant dishes. The first course consisted of a bronze donkey bearing olives flanked by a gridiron of sausages, damsons and dormice coated with poppy seeds and honey. The second course was peahens' eggs presented underneath a perched wooden hen, they sucked on the eggs. I found this dish to be odd however the eggs contained garden warblers cooked in spiced egg yolk. The third course was winged hare surrounded by stuffed capons and sows' bellied in a zodiacal arrangement. The fourth course was a wild boar accompanied by pastry suckling piglets and filled with live thrushes. The fifth course was a hog stuffed with sausages and meat puddings. Finally, the sixth course was a boiled calf wearing a helmet, which was sliced up by a slave dressed as the hero Ajax.
This short story brought up a few realizations about our present day festivities, I realized as I read this that some of the richest people I know are the ones with the worst manners and the most rude and boastful about what they own. It seems sad that there are people who only care to show off what they possess rather than actually form relationships with others.
