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Friday 14 December 2012

Haiti


I've had Haiti on my heart lately. I was talking to my best friend about the extreme poverty there and he asked my why Haiti is so poor. I wasn't exactly sure how to answer. So, I asked my blogger friend Mark to write about this for me. I could have googled it, but I wanted the perspective of an insider. Not some reporter who might have spent a week there, but someone who loves and knows Haiti

Why is Haiti so poor?

Historically Haiti has never had a period of sustained growth. It seems that every time Haiti gets to her feet from one natural disaster, ruthless dictator or health epidemic another is waiting to knock her down. Not to mention foreign governments and businesses meddling in Haitian affairs which always ends poorly for Haiti with her landscape ravaged and her people exploited. In the last several decades Haiti has suffered massively from the brain drain that happened during Papa Doc’s regime. The Ton Ton Macoute, Duvalier’s para-military hit squad killed tens of thousands of his political detractors and there was a mass exodus of Haiti’s elite, including her writers, artists, professors etc.. There is also the reality of corruption and gang violence that keeps honest business from thriving and hard working people at the mercy of the greedy and the powermongers. Add to all of this that there are no loans for people in Haiti. Not even micro loans to help start a small business. There is an extreme lack of upward mobility in Haiti keeping her people scrambling at the bottom for limited resources and jobs. All of these factors make Haiti somewhat volatile at times which in turn keeps foreign investors wary of moving industry to Haiti.

What would it take to break the cycle of poverty?

People in Haiti want to work. They want to build very small modest homes for their family. They dream of owning small businesses to insulate themselves from the 75% un-employment rate. I feel like one of the best ways to help Haiti’s people would be to offer micro-loans with extremely low interest rates. I have seen the work ethic of Haiti’s people. I have worked these past 6 months with 140 Haitian men who are tireless, who never complain, who never find a task beneath them. I know that it is a nation of resilient people who can and will thrive if given half a chance. But they remain marginalized by their economic condition, always at the mercy of tomorrow’s tragedy. Education for children that includes sustainable economic and business models would go a long way too, so yeah, micro loans and education for sure.

What is Haiti’s greatest need right now?

I think the greatest need, as far as direct aid relief, is two-fold. There is always the need for medical supplies and medical teams. Each area of Haiti has its own set of particular needs but over all there is a shortage of preventative care and simple medicine/vitamins that could save so many lives and substantially raise the infant mortality rate. The other thing I think would be construction crews to help re-build after the 2010 quake that killed 200,000. There are still close to 400 thousand people in IDP camps. These internally displaced persons are extremely vulnerable to every natural disaster and violence crime and theft. These tent communities, literally tarps over twigs, seldom have working latrines and their over-taxed water supplies are often compromised. These two factors raise very real concerns in light of Haiti’s recent Cholera epidemic. So NGO’s that would use Haitian workforce and Haitian materials to build these families homes would be incredible.

What effects of the earthquake are still felt today?

All over Haiti’s southern region, from the capitol city of Port-au-Prince to Petit Goave buildings remain in heaps of rubble. This past month the presidential palace was finally pushed down to make way for re-building but much of the surrounding areas are still devastated. With no ability to buy materials for construction due again to high unemployment and the inability to take out a loan, Haitian people, especially her poorest, have not been able to rebuild. There have been great strides in trying to get businesses up and running but where there is no money and no NGO support buildings remain shattered just like the lives of too many of their owners.

What about Sandy?

Sandy was tough on Haiti. But only from the rain. At least 50 people died in flash flooding and mud slides. There was also a slight spike in Cholera. Sandy along with Isaac before her showcased the extreme vulnerability of Haiti’s people. When a relatively small and weak storm can do so much damage you realize just how tenuous life in Haiti is.

What would it take to put a stop to the trend of restaveks? (If you've never seen the term before, it refers to a child in forced domestic servitude. More information can be found here)

I am going to defer to my close friend Megan Boudreaux on this one. She has worked extensively with Restaveks through her organization Respire Haiti . She says it is education. Making sure that each child has an education and then in turn educating people that each life is sacred and important. She has enrolled upwards of 300 restaveks in her school in Gressier, Haiti. Personally I feel this to be so true. Obviously greed and lust play a part in every type of exploitation and Governments must make strong anti child slavery laws and enforce them. I would like to see Haiti’s president Martelly make this a top priority of his government and to give local municipalities the resources to identify these children and get them to safety. But this is such a deeply convoluted and engrained part of Haiti’s culture that these children are slaves in plain sight. Church and civic leaders need to raise their voice in an united front against this injustice. It needs to become a source of national shame and the collective conscience of Haiti must turn its will toward eradication of this despicable practice. A quarter of a million children’s lives depend on it.

What issues are there in Haitian orphanages?

Too many of Haiti’s orphanages are run for profit. Spider’s as my friend Morgan Weinberg from Little Footprints, Big Steps calls them, are opportunistic profiteers who prey on the desperation of Haiti’s impoverished families. They will take children who aren’t even orphans and post sad pictures all over the web to tug at international heartstrings attached to firstworld purses. Kids are kept on the edge of starvation in tattered clothing to keep the pictures compelling. They sleep on dirt or in crowded beds, sometimes without basic sanitation or healthcare. Although there are some amazing people who run orphanages and care deeply for these kids far too many of these homes are prisons for innocent kids.

What is being done about it?

There has been a recent effort by Haitian child services to crack down on exploitation in Haiti’s orphanages, and I have seen some good trends in that respect. But at times it seems very disjointed, half-hearted and somewhat arbitrary. And I have also experienced firsthand the corruption that greases palms to turn blind eyes. Some NGO’s on the ground are checking in on these kids too. They are building relationships with honest, kind orphanage directors and fully vetting these homes before placing kids.

What can people in the developed world do to help?

Ultimately Haiti needs resources, needs volunteers. Skilled professionals such as doctors, nurses , dentists, social workers and construction experts can volunteer with NGOs already deeply invested and embedded in communities. These NGOs have already won the trust of their Haitian neighbors and isolated those most at risk and in the most dire need. Also donors should not allow their wariness of corruption to stop their donating. They need only to fully vet organizations. There are so many amazing people on the ground in Haiti doing such incredible things but always in need of more resources to meet the need.


Respire Haiti

Friday 23 November 2012

Fashionable

“Today it is fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately, it is not fashionable to talk with them.” ~ Mother Teresa

Oh man. Do I really need to say anything to this? I live so segregated from the poor. Now, I really think impoverished Americans have it much better than those in other countries because of the vast amount of social services and free government care we provide. Still, there is no reason for me to be so distanced. My mum always says I care too much for my social life. I typically see my friends once to twice a week, sometimes more.  I feel it's how I keep sane, because working with people who are in preschool is lonely. But what if I could give that much time to people who aren't loved? It's easy to love on the lovable, and to have coffee dates and lunches with them. What if I did that with the poor?


New Horizons




                                                                  "New Horizons"

So you're tired but you're alive
So open up your eyes
And you can get your sleep when you are dead
Kill the clock inside your head
Bring your normalcy to the edge
And watch it drown in new horizons
New horizons

You said I'd only have to wait until I died
And that's no time
How did we come to thinking this was funny
Cheering and laughing at the dying
While we're riding the light in you

Wait
You said I'd only have to wait until I die
(New horizons)
There is no such thing as time
Inside this moment no sun rising
Wait until I fly
(New horizons)
Wait until I fly
(New horizons)

Life floods in with a conquest
Life floods in with a new quest
Here's a voice for the voiceless
And a song for the soulless
Life floods in

When the times keep going wrong and we go right
When the times keep going wrong and we go right


When the times keep going wrong and we go right
We go right

Saturday 17 November 2012

gospel


enter my bitter rants--

Religion sucks. It's merely a prescribed behaviour enacted for the praise of one's cohorts. If you can't live the gospel you fake on Sundays then why bother to claim it at all?

Taking Christianity as an example, shouldn't Sundays be the day people see you at your worst? If you're out living your gospel during the week, wouldn't Sundays be when you repentantly bring your faults to those who would exhort and encourage? Shouldn't Sunday be the day when you break from toil, and just breathe? Shouldn't Sunday be when you confess your downfalls to your peers and seek forgiveness? Shouldn't Sunday be the day when you realise just how much you need your God?

Instead Sunday is the day you seek out your best. You seek to impress. The speech is affected and a faked manner of dress. Crisp collars, pleated pants. You don't go to cry for God's mercy. Instead you go to play-act. Present a façade to the others to convince them of your holiness.


Holiness needs no spokesperson. If you're "set apart" the world will see before you open your mouth. Because they will see the poor fed and clothed. They will see the oppressed lifted up. And they will see you bear the mark of an intimacy with your God because you live the God-breathed scriptures.



"Is this not the fast that I have chose: To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh?" Isaiah 58:6,7


Defend the poor and fatherless;

Deliver the poor and needy;Free them from the hand of the wicked Psalm 82:3,4


But if anyone has this world’s goods (resources for sustaining life) and sees his brother and fellow believer in need, yet closes his heart of compassion against him, how can the love of God live and remain in him? 1 John 3:17







Do justice to the afflicted and needy. If you can't live the gospel without words, you are not living the gospel. That god-damned act crumbles under scrutiny



Sunday 11 November 2012

oh, to be someone else

Mr. Swan, I envy you. You live in a canal in an extremely wealthy area. Your winter consists of paddling around a sparkling blue (though at some parts murky green) waterway. The most annoying thing to you is those loud ducks that congregate around you behind people's decks and those squawking squabbling coots. You can get children (and adults) to feet you bread almost whenever the whim hits. Does anybody ever tell you that you aren't more than an object? Does anybody ever tell you you've failed? Does anybody ever tell you that you should be dead?

Is there any satisfaction in being human? Does it mean anything more than experiencing pain and seeing others in pain and feeling completely unable to help? Is humanity any more than a cruel creation of beings set to oppose each other, to prey on others, to live a life of bitter hatred towards others?

It seems sometimes that love is just an illusion, and emotion a curse.


Saturday 20 October 2012

Domestic prisoner prevails

Published: Oct. 24, 2006 3:00 a.m.


Girl forced into servitude recounts her story in court; Irvine captors get prison terms.:
By GREG HARDESTY//The Orange County Register

 When authorities found her, the 12-year-old girl was shabbily dressed with reddish hands caked with dead, hard-looking skin - the result of being forced to work as a domestic servant for a large Irvine family.

Monday, at the culmination of Orange County's first federal prosecution of a human-trafficking case, the girl, now 17 and in a caring home, told a judge how she lost nearly two years of her childhood.

"Where was their love when it came to me?" the teen said, sobbing. "I was a human being, too."

Just a few feet away, the couple who treated her like an outcast in their new home in a gated community, forcing her to care for their five children and do housework for no pay, somberly awaited sentencing.

"What they did to me will scar me for the rest of my life," said the girl, Shyima. The Register is identifying her only by her first name at the request of her foster parents. "They treated me like nothing."

At the end of the emotional, two-hour hearing in Santa Ana, U.S. District Judge James V. Selna sentenced the pair to prison and ordered them to pay the girl more than $152,000 in restitution - the amount, plus penalties, that prosecutors calculated she would have made working seven days a week for 20 months.

After expressing remorse through an Arabic translator, Abdel Nasser Youssef Ibrahim, 45, was sentenced to three years in federal prison.

His former wife, Amal Ahmed Ewis-Abd El Motelib, 43, who also apologized to the court for her treatment of the girl, was sentenced to 22 months.

"What happened was due to my ignorance of the law," Motelib told the judge.

In a plea deal with prosecutors, she and Ibrahim pleaded guilty to four felonies, including conspiracy and holding a person in involuntary service through force, for keeping the girl in their home against her will from August 2000 to April 2002.

 Ibrahim was ordered to surrender to authorities on Oct. 30, and Motelib on Nov. 13, but agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took them into custody immediately after sentencing for deportation proceedings. Both will be deported to Egypt after they serve their sentences, said William J. Hayes, a special agent with ICE in Santa Ana.

"I hope this brave and courageous child encourages others who may be in similar situations to come forward," Hayes said outside court.

Shyima, who comes from an impoverished family, began working in the couple's home in Egypt when she was 9.

According to court documents, the couple caught her sister - also employed in their home - stealing.

They threatened to turn her over to authorities unless Shyima came with them to the United States as their domestic servant. They struck a deal with her parents, essentially leasing her for $30 a month for a planned 10 years.

What transpired in Irvine was a modern-day saga of child slavery, according to court documents and an interview with Shyima.

Shyima was not allowed to go to school and was refused visits to the doctor.

She was relegated to a 12-by-8-foot converted room in the garage and forced to sleep on a dirty, fold-up mattress. She had no dresser, no closet, no heating or ventilation and only a black widow spider for a companion.

Every morning, Shyima would wake up the three youngest children and dress them. She would make their breakfast and pack their lunches for school while Ibrahim and Motelib slept.

While the other children in the household went to school, played with friends and visited the mosque, Shyima was shunned. She was not allowed to eat with the family and was verbally abused. Family members called her "the Stupid Girl," among other names.

Shyima was forced to hand-wash her clothes separately, in a soapy bucket she kept by her mattress.

On at least one occasion, Ibrahim slapped her for disobeying, and Motelib slapped her at least twice.

They told her she would be arrested if she went outside alone.

 One day, a neighbor saw her taking out the trash and asked her why she was not in school. An anonymous phone call tipped off authorities.

Defense lawyers argued that in Egypt it is customary to employ children as domestic help. Laws there prohibit employing children 12 and under.

Ibrahim and Motelib said in court papers that their conduct was motivated by a "well-intentioned, charitable desire to care for and support the children of an impoverished Egyptian family."

Two of their five children, both adults, have been deported to Egypt; the others, a 16-year-old girl and twin 12-year-old boys, are expected to be placed in the care of relatives in Southern California.

Shyima saw a counselor for more than year and says she is starting to move on. But she still feels anger at Ibrahim and Motelib.

Her foster parents, Jenny and Chuck Hall, 36, who are expecting to finalize adoption proceedings in December, say she is adjusting well. The Halls have three biological children and three foster children.


Shyima is a junior in high school.

She plays soccer and softball and is learning to play the guitar. She loves movies and hanging out at the mall. She plans to go to junior college and is thinking about becoming a police officer.

After Monday's sentencing, she and her parents strolled downtown Santa Ana.

They bought her a new black dress for a homecoming dance this Saturday.

Friday 19 October 2012

Danielle

"I kept weapons, in case the tricks acted up. So I wasnt never scared of them. They stupid. Especially the white ones. They be the ones that want to do the dirty stuff but I wasn't having none of that. . ."
And finally Danielle begins to tell me about her experiences in the sex industry. Now she's animated, confident to be the expert, schooling me on which johns are the best paying, which hotels are the nicest, which tricks you have to be careful of. I'm trying to reconcile what she is saying with the fact that I know she's eleven and a minute ago we were talking about her favorite rides at Great Adventure, but I can't

from Girls Like Us by Rachel Lloyd





Saturday 1 September 2012

Some Q&A with Nicole Marett

Until consumers start voting with their dollars, buying products that are ethically sourced and tell other companies that we won’t shop with them, the market can’t change.

I recently emailed the owner and founder of Radiant Cosmetics because I am writing about businesses that have ethical practises, and highlighting RC's fight against human trafficking

Here's a little Q&A with +Nicole Marett  

1) When I asked about your mica being ethically sourced that really made me wonder what the cost difference is. Is there a significant difference in the price of supplies that you know to have been provided via fair labour as opposed to those without transparency or with questionable origins?

It depends product to product, for mica specifically, the price difference is minimal for ethically sourced mica. However, other ingredients the price difference is quite large. Often times, finding ethically sourced products is difficult, anything organic or mineral based is often up to 50% more in price.

2) do you feel that your ethical practises and donations have made it difficult to run a profitable business?

Yes! There are several reasons it makes it more difficult. First, we donate 20% of profits, which sounds minimal. But that’s 20% we could be spending on better advertising and marketing each month to get the word out more. Also, often times because our products are more ethically made, we have trouble offering a selection that is on trend and keeping up with fashion seasons. For example, I’ve been wanting to add and revamp a few new products, but simply can’t find ingredients that have records of their source so I either have to choose to make a product that I know will be a big seller and make us more profits, or choose not to make it because I don’t know where the ingredients come from.

3) Is it difficult to find suppliers that demonstrate transparency and fair labour?

Yes, this is the most difficult part. A year later, I’m still working on getting every single ingredient certified. It simply doesn’t exist to check everything. It’s easy to check the bigger ingredients such as mica, but other items, while I feel comfortable that they are ethically sourced still lack certification. I’d love to fair trade certify my company, but don’t have that option because certification can’t be found on every single little piece/part. Asking suppliers is also another huge pain, they are confused at why I care so much about where the products are made and how. Many suppliers won’t answer me or care to check. It’s definitely a frustrating process.

I think something else that would be great to include would be the responsibility that lies with the consumer as well. Before starting Radiant, I didn’t understand why businesses couldn’t just do things ethically. Just get new suppliers, didn’t seem that hard. Then I realized what a headache it can be. Most of all though, I find that customers don’t care. Every once in a while I’ll have people ask about the sourcing of my products, which I love, because it means they care. However, not enough people care. Until consumers start voting with their dollars, buying products that are ethically sourced and tell other companies that we won’t shop with them, the market can’t change. I know for me, as a small business, making a profit has been incredibly hard, people have to actively choose to shop for ethical products, whether that’s mine or another company.

#fighthumantrafficking   #endsextrafficking   #ethicallysourced  #ethicalfashion  

radiantcosmetics.org

Sunday 20 May 2012

The Cry of the Children


The Cry of the Children
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61)
DO ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
      Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
      And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,        5
  The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
  The young flowers are blowing toward the west:
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
      They are weeping bitterly!        10
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
      In the country of the free.
Do you question the young children in the sorrow
      Why their tears are falling so?
The old man may weep for his to-morrow        15
      Which is lost in Long Ago;
The old tree is leafless in the forest,
  The old year is ending in the frost,
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,
  The old hope is hardest to be lost:        20
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
      Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
      In our happy Fatherland?
They look up with their pale and sunken faces,        25
      And their looks are sad to see,
For the man’s hoary anguish draws and presses
      Down the cheeks of infancy;
“Your old earth,” they say, “is very dreary,
  Our young feet,” they say, “are very weak;        30
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—
  Our grave-rest is very far to seek:
Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children,
      For the outside earth is cold,
And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,        35
      And the graves are for the old.”
“True,” say the children, “it may happen
      That we die before our time:
Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen
      Like a snowball, in the rime.        40
We looked into the pit prepared to take her:
  Was no room for any work in the close clay!
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
  Crying, ‘Get up, little Alice! it is day.’
If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,        45
  With your ear down, little Alice never cries:
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
  For the smile has time for growing in her eyes:
And merry go her moments, lull’d and still’d in
      The shroud by the kirk-chime.        50
It is good when it happens,” say the children,
      “That we die before our time.”
Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking
      Death in life, as best to have:
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,        55
      With a cerement from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city,
  Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do;
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cow-slips pretty,
  Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!        60
But they answer, “Are your cowslips of the meadows
      Like our weeds anear the mine?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
      From your pleasures fair and fine!
“For oh,” say the children, “we are weary,        65
      And we cannot run or leap;
If we car’d for any meadows, it were merely
      To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
  We fall upon our faces, trying to go;        70
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
  The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring
      Through the coal-dark, underground,
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron        75
      In the factories, round and round.
“For all day, the wheels are droning, turning;
      Their wind comes in our faces,
Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning,
      And the walls turn in their places:        80
Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,
  Turns the long light that drops adown the wall,
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,
  All are turning, all the day, and we with all.
And all day, the iron wheels are droning,        85
      And sometimes we could pray,
‘O ye wheels,’ moaning breaking out in a mad
      ‘Stop! be silent for to-day!’”
Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing
      For a moment, mouth to mouth!        90
Let them touch each other’s hands, in a fresh wreathing
      Of their tender human youth!
Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
  Is not all the life God fashions or reveals:
Let them prove their living souls against the notion        95
  That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
      Grinding life down from its mark;
And the children’s souls, which God is calling sunward,
      Spin on blindly in the dark.        100
Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,
      To look up to Him and pray;
So the blessed One who blesseth all the others,
      Will bless them another day.
They answer, “Who is God that He should hear us,        105
  While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirr’d?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
  Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word.
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
      Strangers speaking at the door:        110
Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,
      Hears our weeping any more?
“Two words, indeed, of praying we remember,
      And at midnight’s hour of harm,
‘Our Father,’ looking upward in the chamber,        115
      We say softly for a charm.
We know no other words except ‘Our Father,’
  And we think that, in some pause of angels’ song,
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
  And hold both within His right hand which is strong.        120
‘Our Father!’ If He heard us, He would surely
      (For they call Him good and mild)
Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,
      ‘Come and rest with me, my child.’
“But, no!” say the children, weeping faster,        125
      “He is speechless as a stone:
And they tell us, of His image is the master
      Who commands us to work on.
Go to!” say the children,—“up in heaven,
  Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find.        130
Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving:
  We look up for God, but tears have made us blind.”
Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,
      O my brothers, what ye preach?
For God’s possible is taught by His world’s loving,        135
      And the children doubt of each.
And well may the children weep before you!
      They are weary ere they run:
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
      Which is brighter than the sun.        140
They know the grief of man, without its wisdom;
  They sink in man’s despair, without its calm;
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,
  Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm:
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly        145
      The harvest of its memories cannot reap,—
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly.
      Let them weep! let them weep!
They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
      And their look is dread to see,        150
For they mind you of their angels in high places,
      With eyes turned on Deity.
“How long,” they say, “how long, O cruel nation,
  Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart,—
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,        155
  And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,
      And your purple shows your path!
But the child’s sob in the silence curses deeper
      Than the strong man in his wrath.”

Wednesday 11 January 2012

27

I like the number 27.

It was my favourite Psalm
My best friend's age.

But what I hate about 27, is that's how many million people are enslaved today. Say something about it. Educate, Activate, Terminate.

Because people were never meant to be bought or sold. 

Tuesday 10 January 2012

Killing babies

Something I learned today: 126,000 abortions are performed daily worldwide

And 30,000 preschoolers die every day from preventable causes.

I couldn't find any stats about how many die in wars, genocides, infanticide. . .

Over 150,000 little kids dying each day because we just don't value life enough. We're too selfish, eliminating fetuses because they're inconvenient. . .ignoring hungry, thirsty, sick toddlers because we just don't care.

One of the best parts of my life is I get to kiss sweet baby faces. Sounds funny, but its true. I love cuddling little cuties.

So sad to think over 50 million babies never make it out of the womb alive. What the hell is our problem?