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Re: [OM] [MUGers] IMG: Las Familias

Subject: Re: [OM] [MUGers] IMG: Las Familias
From: Tina Manley <tmanley@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2019 10:13:03 -0400
The families that I stay with always ask for a family portrait so I take
one and send a print back to them.  These photos are not used for
fund-raising because the response would be the same as your's:  "Do
something about family size!"  In order for contraception information to be
effective, the people have to have confidence that the children they have
will survive.  That's not true in Central America yet. Living in Honduras
is much like living in the USA 150 years ago.  Large families were needed
to work on the farm and infant mortality rates were high.   Everybody had a
large family back then.  The Monueles family, the first one I stayed with
in 1989, had 16 children but only 8 were still living when I was there.
Two more have died since then.  That's typical of rural farm families. Many
families have several children with the same name.  There might be 4
Tiburcios and 3 Marias because they have no confidence that the children
will survive.  Our medical missions do provide vaccinations and vitamins
but we can't do much about the lack of clean water (Living Waters does a
great job as far as they can), drought (Heifer Project is teaching them
about drought-resistant crops but it's a slow and expensive process),
communicable diseases, lack of consistent medical care, and gangs and drugs
in the cities.

One of the big problems is weather!  The self-development agencies make so
much progress teaching crop rotation and zero-grazing and people are just
starting to make a living when something like Hurrican Mitch roars through
and destroys everything.  Several of the villages where I stayed were wiped
out in Mitch with no survivors.  Now they are dealing with severe drought:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latin-america/central-america-drying-farmers-face-choice-pray-rain-or-leave-n1027346
 I don't know that any of the families I photographed are a part of the
migration to the USA but I would not be surprised.  They are desperate.

Tina

On Sun, Jul 14, 2019 at 1:30 AM Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 7/13/2019 1:30 PM, Tina Manley wrote:
> > Thanks, Dietmar!  I think you are the only one who looked at the link.
> :-(
>
> I hope you have a site visit counter? I know I visited twice.
>
> What is there to say? Many photos of families posing isn't particularly
> interesting to me, unlike many, many of the
> other photos you took there.
>
> My other, immediate, reaction was one I am not sure you will find
> uncharitable - way too many children being brought
> into the world. To the extent that they are successful at the medical part
> of the mission, improved health care leads to
> population growth, as infant and child mortality decline and lifespan
> increases.. I would hope that a part of it would
> also be contraception information and supplies. But I don't know the
> politics of contraception there.
>
> Erstwhile Economist Moose
>
> --
> What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
> --
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>

-- 
Tina Manley
www.tinamanley.com
http://www.pbase.com/tinamanley
<http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/3B49552F-90A0-4D0A-A11D-2175C937AA91/Tina+Manley.html>
*https://www.alamy.com/portfolio/649596.html
<https://www.alamy.com/portfolio/649596.html>*
-- 
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