Bumper Stickers & A New Form Of Escapism

Even though I have not had a television for several years it can still be a challenge to avoid the bombardment of media messages that surround me. In the car and traveling the usual routes, roadways are punctuated with distracting billboards. They tout how we don't need to downsize our houses only our loans, how Iron Man III is the rage, how you will meet either the grim reaper or a judge if you drink & drive, where you can see the next cage fight or even get a colonoscopy.

Turning to the radio, current events have an interesting ratio that seems to depict the tragic over the triumphant. The heated debates over putting fluoride in drinking water, how the governor has decided to cut retirement benefits for some (because he can), and then there is the Ohio kidnapping story. Some things are good in the news, such as a few million dollars being made available to schools where the hiring of new teachers will fill in some existing gaps. It's surprising to note how reporters spin that event. It was prefaced with the fact that kids will have less free time on their hands since there will be more teachers, which will lead to better class availability. The subtext seemed negative and likely in exact conflict with a previous story about how schools don't have money for new teachers and kids are missing out.

Turning to the Internet and heading over to a popular news page to see if I could keep in touch with mainstream happenings - I became dumbfounded. With around 142 million site visitors a day in 2012, this site exposes us to some interesting headlines. Here are a few from the last few days:

Baby Goat Jumps On Pig
Hairstyles That Trim 10 Years From Your Age
Flat Abs In Five Minutes
White House Defensive Over Benghazi Memo
Maxim Hot 100 List: How Many Disney Stars Made the Top 10?

Feeling somewhat disgruntled I was motivated to enter a search term into Google: Acts of Kindness.

One of the first sites I visited was randomactsofkindness.org. It reminded me of the bumper sticker Practice Random Acts of Kindness and how sometimes those stickers lose their potency. Digging a little deeper into the website I discovered two stories that renewed my attitude about what goes on in the world - I'm not sure I'll be putting that bumper sticker on my car, but I have found a new form of "escapism" and will be visiting the site more often.

Here are two stories from the site:

The World Needs More Love Letters - Hannah Brencher

Peach's Neet Feet - Madison Steiner

Seeking Wisdom of the Quiet

With constant bombardment of information it sometimes becomes difficult to hear our own breath. We take in the tragic news stories, the pushing of public agendas, the loud voices in support of social justice and our own mental ramblings. 

Walking into a Target or a Costco or a Rite Aid, further sensory overload can occur at the realization of there being so much and possibly even too much. Twenty-seven varieties of toothpaste, options on options of laundry soap and buckets of deep-fried mozzarella cheese sticks present themselves to the indecisive and those with grasping hands alike. Messages of what to buy and how to join-up with a society of consumerism, pop-culture and the need for entertainment to define fun, surround us.

I realize that some of these observations are generalizations and I also realize the nature of hypocrisy in my own behavior (how could I be witness to buckets of mozzarella cheese sticks if I were not a member of the club?).

The pressures of society can favor the players and discard the unskilled. The resisters can become outliers and perhaps even alienated. Jumping into the matrix of any given society and being accepted is perhaps a privilege. Defining personal priorities of what is important can yield peace when paired with a congruent environment. Where is that environment for you?

Sticks & Stones & Spontaneous Thought

     Words. We use words to form language and to communicate. The idea seems simple enough in that it’s a tool to navigate through life and relationships. When thinking a little more deeply about where words come from and how the meanings they hold originated, a new appreciation for them can develop. Take the word sandwich for example. It is noted that John Montagu, 4^th Earl of Sandwich would slap slices of meat in between two slices of bread while sitting at the gambling table. Although this may be an interpretation of the actual circumstances leading up to the naming of a sandwich, it does make for an interesting story. How we adopt, use and integrate words into our culture is a fascinating study. How the advancing of technology has created new words for us to communicate with one another reveals the unending evolution of their usage (e.g. Lemme Google that).

     The origin of:

Sticks and stones may break my bones

But words will never harm me

is reported to stem from an English language children’s rhyme. It also has some reported associations with religious publications as an old adage. When reflecting on my own childhood, the saying was often lobbed across the blacktop on the playground to ward off the bullying sort. It is understood that one intention of the saying is to let someone know that if they impose physical harm to you it will indeed hurt, but that the slinging of their words will somehow magically bounce off and reverberate into the universe. When reflecting on the saying as an adult I think the latter part of this saying could not be farther from the truth. 

     Words that are heard as a child from schoolmates and from the adults in a household can be vexatious and far-reaching into the depths of psychological health. It is not only the words that are slung from the mouths of others that matter. It is also their intention and their subtext, which can permeate into the illusive fibers of our souls and live with us in our hearts. How those words land on us as children can set the stage for how we see ourselves as adults. It is one of the quietest whispers of our inner voices, where currents of sound resonate in our bones. We may remember any particular segment of verbal abuse as it bubbles up from the sub-conscious and find in less than-an-instant how it colors our spontaneous thoughts with attacks on our own sense of worth. 

     What we do with these instances of subtle invasions in a mindful way can determine how we process hurtful words of others. Taking a moment to suspend any associated feelings of powerlessness, lack of self-worth or urges to become defensive requires courage. Taking the next moment to invite and focus on the kind words we have found uttered from the mouths of others can work as a salve to emotional pain as we walk forward in our own footsteps. Life can happen fast and words can fly from our mouths instantaneously. Taking a moment to choose our words can make a difference in the ripples that move the world.

Alarming

Sometimes, when I'm out in public and I hear that generic ring tone on an iPhone I suddenly feel far too intimately connected with the person who is attached to that phone. "Hey? What are you doing using the tone I wake up to in the morning?" flashes through my mind and somehow it feels like that person was in bed with me, if only for a nanosecond. It became a preoccupation to change the ring tone for the morning alarm.

This was a good idea not only because that generic ring tone was making me feel a little too close to strangers in public, but also because it was causing a startled reaction when waking up every morning. Why wake up to something that startles? Eyes opening to the day should find a welcoming of some sort. So now I hear the sweet sounds of Jerry Douglas and his guitar. This transition from sleep has also made finding my first cup of coffee for the day much more enjoyable. Instead of the startled awakening and jump-up-because-snooze-was-pushed-too-many-times chain reaction, I get to arrive in the kitchen with a calm state of mind.

The ritual of preparing coffee and enjoying the extraction is a personal one and reasons for drinking it are many. As I take my time in selecting which beans I am curious about, weighing, grinding, taking in the dry notes, adding the first few grams of hot water and watching the grounds bloom, I contemplate where those beans came from. Who planted these seeds (coffee is a seed)? How did they find their way to market? Did they get stored well during transport? How was money changing hands? Were the people who grew and harvested the coffee seeds paid any kind of respectable sum?

My curiosity about coffee leads me to all kinds of information. One bit I heard recently was from a person telling her story about traveling to Africa and seeing coffee farming production practices. She relayed how one woman coffee worker had taken her hand-sorted coffee cherries (what they are when picked but not yet processed to get the seeds out) to be weighed so she could receive payment.

Sorting - Image from www.verite.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the traveling woman asked how much the worker had received for her product, it was an approximate equivalent of $20.00 for about 1000 pounds of coffee cherries brought in over 3-5 months...alarming.

So I think more about what I can do to help this situation. Becoming aware is a pretty good start. Making the best decisions I can with the information I have a little bit at a time seems like a realistic approach. It may be that I spend too much time getting to the bottom of where the coffee I drink comes from, and sometimes I wonder about the information I'm given. How do I know it's accurate? I keep asking questions, I keep looking for more details. Case in point, in writing up this blog and finding the above image, I discovered the website from which it came Verite and I learned more about forced labor in coffee production.

I also think about the other products I consume in my life. I am currently typing on a Mac. Once I found Verite and began looking around the site, I was happy to find a positive bit of news on Apple.

Image from www.verite.org

Read the brief story on Apple here.

World Wide Root System

There is a lot, a lot, of coffee in the world. For the 2011-2012 crop season, Bloomberg reports that farmers are harvesting 146 million bags. A bag? It weighs about 132 pounds. The math? That's 19,272,000,000. According to Global Exchange, there are 25 million farmers and workers in over 50 countries producing coffee.

Global Exchange also points out that as beans around the world make their way to the US, they often change hands via middlemen exporters (some have been given the name "coyote" because they can take advantage of small farmers). A lot of small farmers receive less money than it actually costs to cover production. Additionally, working conditions can be horrible, and over half don't receive minimum wages. Children are often taken to the fields to help their families meet picking quotas. These kinds of labor issues also play a role in the lives of women. They need to support their families and are often found without the skills or resources to avoid poverty and live sustainable lives.

This, is where the International Women's Coffee Alliance (IWCA) comes into the picture. There are without a doubt many organizations with missions to help farmers who are struggling. IWCA is one of them and it focuses on creating a global network of women, and men, at all levels of the coffee industry to lift up those who are in need of help. The mission statement of IWCA:

Empower women in the international coffee community to achieve meaningful and sustainable lives; and to encourage and recognize the participation of women in all aspects of the coffee industry.

Within IWCA are many country chapters. Once such chapter that signed its Letter of Understanding with IWCA in April of 2011 is in Burundi. Part of their mission is to "fight discrimination and marginalization of women in the coffee growing community." 

You can see a video about how these efforts are helping to establish connections for women in coffee under the Women and Trade Program here

Coffee beans actually begin their journey as seeds that are planted and given that they are an agricultural commodity, they can be subject to any number of variables. Crops can change from year-to-year. Growing, harvesting and processing takes hard labor and is done by folks all around the world. As the raw beans make their way through the hands of middlemen (or through Fair Trade or through Direct Trade), they continue through a maze of destinations: export, import, transport to roaster and stored. How the beans are roasted and how they are ground and prepared involves their crossing even more hands and lives and livelihoods.  As the beans travel the channels from the ground to our cups, they connect us all through a world wide root system. Respect for the bean begins with respect for the people who grow them.

Brown Blood

Some claim that coffee is the #2 traded commodity right behind crude oil and some claim it's not #2, but is in the top 10. Either way, it's an impressive position to hold. Although I do come across some folks who don't drink coffee it's hard to argue that it does not touch most lives in some way shape or form.
From coffee growers, to harvesters, to processors, to coops, brokers, exporters, importers, roasters, cafes, baristas and more - coffee makes an impact on the world.

I can remember when the only way I could stomach coffee was to take in the form of a mocha, where the flavor of chocolate prevailed. When Starbuck's Coffee shops began to spring up in cities everywhere, I jumped on board. My standard drink became a triple-tall-no-fat-caramel-macchiato-one-pump-of-vanilla twice and sometimes thrice daily. Macchiato? I had no idea what I was ordering other than I knew it was a sweet treat with some sugar and caffeine.

A few years went by and one day by chance, I had a plain old cup of coffee from a little roaster in Oakland, CA. I found that I needed to add no milk and no sugar. This was the beginning of discovering coffee for what it could be. I began to research who was roasting what and trying a variety of bean types from different parts of the world. I also remember the first time I had an espresso that led to an epiphany. The little sip I took was creamy and then nutty with an actual burst of sweet lemon at the finish. I was hooked.

The next phase of discovering coffee has led my life down a new path. I learned a while ago that coffee is actually a seed, not a bean. It's an agricultural commodity grown by farmers who run operations from the small to the gigantic. Now that I have begun to question who plants, nurtures, harvests sells and sustains a livelihood from coffee, my eyes are opening to a new world. One aspect of the industry involves women who often participate in the labor intensive processing of coffee who receive very little  in return. Things like fair wages, decent housing or health care are not part of the equation. Many women (as well as men and children) are often left without a way to live sustainable lives.

There is no shortage of battles from which to choose to focus on when it comes to social justice. I can question where and under what conditions any number of products I purchase have come from and were made. My focus is on coffee as it is a commodity that touches the world. One portrayal of the harvest season recently caught my eye. It covers the thin months - a time when small coffee farmers must survive after they sell their raw coffee. A 6 minute version of the short film is here:

To see the full version you can visit here:
After the Harvest: The Fight Against Hunger in the Coffeelands: Watch