October was quite a busy month here on the ranch and this first week of November is proving to be no different. I normally like to explain my adventures in chronological order but I can't get the events of this morning out of my mind. I signed up for rabbitry training which is basically code for learning the slaughtering process of rabbits. I knew it would be unpleasant at the very least, but I thought it was important to see how many families in the world have to process their meat--sometimes their beloved animals to survive. I also lead a discussion on meat and our relation with it during our global village programs and I felt the need to experience the slaughter (for lack of a better word) process first hand. I'm happy to say it was done very humanely--at least as humane as killing goes. We started with a moment of silence to thank the rabbit for it's life and all it had given us. It was then hung by its back feet at which point the trainer quickly broke its neck so it wouldn't be in any pain. It was then decapitated, skinned, and dissected. Needless to say it was all hard to watch and at one point I started to feel faint and nauseous. Yet as unsettling as it was I'm still glad to have witnessed it. I think it's so important for meat-eaters to see and understand where their meat is coming from, how it lived and how it was killed and processed. The experience also gave me another perspective on hunting which I won't go completely into. However, I've always had such a negative opinion on hunting and still somewhat do, yet I don't seem to have a problem if the animal is killed with respect (oh, the irony) and used to its full potential afterwards. If a hunter decides to kill for his meat that means he'd be purchasing it elsewhere, killed and handled by someone else when he could possibly do the same job in perhaps a more humane fashion.
Anyways I could write for hours as my thought process on meat unfolds, but I have other stories to share. Several weeks ago I co-facilitated a group of Wal-Mart Benefits Department employees through our Global Gateway program. (By the way I'm not sure if I explained these different programs, but in a nutshell they all include an overnight in our global village and lessons on poverty, hunger, environmental issues, and some of their solutions). Now this group came to the ranch because Wal-Mart is trying to learn how to better serve what they consider the "underserved" aka low-income families mainly in developing countries. Before they began their program they had a little seminar on some of their foreign costumers and how the company is adapting to better serve them. As I sat through this I got the impression that they have good intentions, yet they don't quite understand the core problems of poverty and hunger and therefore their "solutions" are usually more harmful then helpful. For example, one presenter showed a picture of an open air market one could find anywhere in the world. He pointed out the fish vendor selling his goods in a simple and perhaps unsanitary way (eg. fish on ice) and explained that Wal-Mart wants to give these costumers a healthier option. That's all well and good but does that mean they'd take business away from these traditional and cultural markets that many farmers rely on for a living? Oh right, but then they can just get a job at Wal-Mart and be a slave to American consumerism! Also WM employees are noticing that many families in Latin America for example can't afford a whole pack of diapers so they're selling single packets of diapers. Again, good idea but think of all that waste and stress on the environment that goes along with selling individual products. There are many other examples I could tell you but it would take too long. So after we pried their Blackberries away from them we began an activity I may have mentioned before where we have our participants stand on a world map, distributing themselves according to the world's population. After announcing that Asia has 61% of the world's population, one man yelled out, "That's why we're setting up markets over there as fast as we can!" The facilitators and I caught eyes with eachother as we tried to hold ourselves back. By the way I forgot to mention that I'm not a fan of Wal-Mart or large capitalistic corporations yet to be fair I tried to go about working w/ this group with an open, unbiased mind...yet even then I still found the flaws haha! As we continued through our program and toured the village I think a lot of them started to realize that wen it comes down to it, Wal-Mart and Heifer have very opposite goal. Heifer wants to teach people to raise themselves out of poverty and essentially become self-sustaining (aka not needing a wal-mart!) Wal-Mart on the other hand wants to become a complete international corporation. They mentioned with pride that if Wal-Mart was a country they'd be something like the 25th richest nation in the world...creepy...Overall I think like other groups that have stayed here they had a very thought-provoking experience and they realized how much consumer power and responsibility they have. I must also stress that despite my problems with their company they were incredibly nice and interested and I'm proud of them :)
Let's see what else can I mention before wrapping this up? Halloween was great; my friend from the livestock dep. and I were the 7 m's (seven things you can get from an animal all beginning with m). They are milk, money, meat, muscle, materials, manure, and motivation. I'll let you figure out how we represented them hehe
Well it's an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day here (high of 77!) and the leaves are almost reaching their peak foliage. I'm writing all this outside on my porch swing, barefoot and needless to say I'm soaking in the sun-filled bliss : )
All my love and then some,
Emmy
