Conviction: Hunger

Let's kick off another week, with statistics to get a idea of the scope of this issue.

As you might imagine, hunger is one of the most widely spread problems. It affects people down the street, people in the middle of nowhere, people next to the White House. People in Europe, people in Australia, people in Mexico and in China. There isn't anywhere that hunger isn't a draw on the resources of a society.

More than 11,000 people have died from starvation today. That means that a child dies from starvation every 7 seconds.

There are more than 1 billion people in the world suffering from hunger.

Approximately 1 in 4 children don't get the nutrition they need.

Along with that information, World Vision also cites this:

Even if a child is just moderately underweight, she is four times more likely to die from an infectious disease compared to a well-nourished child.

Worldwide, approximately 145 million children are underweight and at risk of dying — simply because they don’t get enough nutritious food.


It's not a good outlook, by any measurement. And like the other topics we've covered so far, there isn't any easy solution by which every hungry person will suddenly be fed and happy and healthy. The reason for that lies in the reasons that there are so many hungry people in the world, and those are coming up tomorrow!

A France!: Some History

Bonjour mes amis!

Today I think it is pertinent to give you a little background of my trip. I probably should have thought of this a week ago, but you know what it's like before you leave on a trip -- crazy! So here's the deal:

When I was about three, my parents opened up our home to a young french exchange student, Christelle. She lived with us for the summer and had a wonderful time. We all kept in touch over email, and actually visited her once after taking a family bus tour of Europe. Fast forward to today, a few months ago, I asked Christelle if (being a french minor and general lover of france) I could come and visit her for a month to become fluent in the language and just be in france. She said "Mais, oui!" and the planning began.

After saving all of my paychecks for a few months, I bought my plane ticket and just two days ago, I arrived at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. After taking the TGV (which is the european speed train: Train de Grande Vitesse) I settled into Christelle's apartment in the city and soon met her husband Yann and their sweet bébé, Achile.

Though Christelle works in Grenoble, her husband Yann works and they live in the nearby city of Voiron. Both cities are full of old buildings and more history than you could imagine! So for today, only some photos of the cities. I don't want to fill you with too much information in one day.





Oh, and here's a bonus! Everyday that I post in France I will share a french word or phrase with you.
So for today, le petite dejeuner. Le petit dejeuner means breakfast and is pronounced like: luh p'teet day-zhu-nay.

C'est bon, non?
Until tomorrow!
Stephanie

Bonjour à France!

Bonjour mes amis!

For the next month, all of my posts will be coming to you from across the pond. Lucky me, I get to spend a full month with a close (and very generous) family friend, her husband and their super sweet bébé! My posts will be mostly the same, but with more photos of the city and the various frenchie things I encounter.

It should be noted that the keyboard here is different. Many of the symbols do not require the shift key, and the q and a are switched among other things.

No photos for this first post, I haven't taken many nor have I had the chance to download them.

All in all, it is very exciting, and I hope by the end of the month I will have you all convinced to come to France right away!

à bientot!