Let Them Eat Cake

If anyone knows me well, then they will know I have the biggest sweet tooth in the Western Hemisphere. I also realized something else about me today - I am truly a spoiled American. It has only been 3 weeks and a day since I arrived in Les Cayes, Haiti. But today it finally hit me - I could not take another bowl of porridge with bread for breakfast, another protein bar I had brought with me for lunch each day, or another serving of rice and beans for dinner. I have not had a single real dessert since my plane left Miami and while for most of the world this is the norm, I have had the rich comforts of American desserts my entire life and my stomach was having a very hard time forgetting about them this week.

Luckily Mamma Djeune (as the boys call her) must have heard my stomach's rumbling pleas today. Tonight we celebrated my birthday (a month early). I think they thought I said my birthday was July 5th, instead of August 5th. And so my tummy was filled with homemade soup complete with homemade dumplings (the soup they make for special festivities such as birthdays). Following dinner, Mamma Djeune presented me and the boys with a frosted cake and at that point, when the boys eyes lit up and they exclaimed in unison "gateau!" I could not ruin their surprise. I let them sing me Happy Birthday (in both English and French of course) and then my tummy for the first time in 3 weeks was filled with a deliciously satisfying sweet!

After tonight's feast, I couldn't help but think about how many people in this world eat, what I have been eating for the last 3 weeks, everyday. And often they are not in a situation where the family they rent from has enough money to afford cake. That's when my views on global food scarcity started to change. Previously my view on food globally has been: if every man, woman, and child around the world is able to go to bed each night with a full belly then we have satisfied the basic human right of not going hungry. However, if someone told me that I was going to eat rice and beans every night for the rest of my life, if I were to forget about ever having gateau (cake) and ice cream again, and that I should be satisfied with this situation, I would look at them like they were crazy. That's when I realized how easy it is, to sit at my American kitchen table, complete with a variety of delicious foods and desserts, and tell the rest of the world how they should be happy because they get to go to bed with full tummies. It's easy to give advice when the cheesecake is on your side of the table I think. And while I am not advocating for global diabetes with cake at every meal, I think our Millennium Development Goals should be higher. Instead of ending childhood hunger or trying to fix global food scarcity with rice and bean handouts, maybe we should strive to improve local economies worldwide. And then we can say we have finally achieved our goals when people everywhere, both in the mountains of Haiti and the mountains of Vermont, can afford to go to market and buy their family cake for a special celebration.

Oh and if anyone around Les Cayes asks, yes my birthday is July 5th...

Photos of the boys enjoying the cake as much as I did :)