stories and recipes from a young mom who is still just trying to figure it all out!

Friday, August 27, 2010

Ignorance and Guns

"It was a dangerous combination: ignorance and guns," so said a pretty little Cuban girl about the drug wars in Columbia. Which was frighteningly reminiscent of some of the things going on in America today. Things like the extreme animosity and hate toward illegal immigrants (which seems to translate into "Mexicans" these days), and all of the "bad areas" of cities where gangs rule and children are raised by local drug lords. But there was a happy ending to their tragic story, and it gives me hope that there can be happiness someday here... for everybody! At the risk of sounding like a hippie freak: peace, man.

I was watching something on TV that seemed unlikely to be so inspiring. It is called Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations. A sexy older man travels from place to place eating local foods and introducing all of us less lucky homebodies to foods we may have never seen or heard of and can only dream of trying ourselves. In this particular episode, Anthony traveled to Cuba to an area that was once so dangerous you could not walk through the streets. Just a short ten years ago, drugs were king and the people who pushed them were the rule-makers. Many people died, children suffered and were forced to take part in the violence by joining the local gangs or die. Anthony travels to a place that was deemed the Assassin's Cradle. It was so named because that was the place where the kids were taken to be trained for the wars that were tearing the place apart. But now, after ten years of recovery and a group of people who decided enough was enough, Anthony was miraculously allowed to travel to this poor city to join in a roof party.

On the roof is a group of 8 or so boys in gangster looking clothing, all rapping a song in Spanish. There is a large almost flat looking copper dish over a homemade fire simmering with fresh pieces of corn on the cob, meat, and other vegetables. A white chicken named Fredrico is swaying off to the side and they explain that the chicken is drunk. These boys, who were once killers and drug pushers from different gangs are together on a roof and they have actually gotten a chicken drunk so that it would not feel the pain of death. After two more shots, one of the boys says a prayer for God to forgive him and gives thanks to Fredrico before breaking his neck and adding him to the pot. He them explains the dish is made of beef, chicken and pork. And the pork is extra special because he has cut the spinal cord right below the brain and added it, in effect adding the soul of the pig.

I was fascinated and awed by the tough looking boys acting with such kindness toward the meat they were to be eating. It reminded me of something Ghandi said, "you can tell the state of a country by the way they treat their animals." This place had truly made a change and are probably better off than most places in the world.

I can only hope and pray that someday our country might follow in similar footsteps. I feel it should be said that the woman on the show told Anthony that the huge turnaround in their country had a lot to do with giving money to schools; taking kids off the streets and making sure that every single child is educated... take note California. I think it is time for a change.