Today I received an exciting package in the mail. The package was some new clothes. Whoo-hoo! :) I know you’re thinking, “what’s the big deal? It’s just some mail ordered clothes–we all order things online to get shipped to our houses nowadays.” But, it’s not so much the actual items that I’m excited about (although they are very nice); rather it is the meaning behind the purchase. Our family has been taking steps to be more Fair Indigo Tagaware of our purchases–the companies we’re buying from, how things are made/grown, etc. We have actively switched stores that we shop at and have stopped purchasing items from certain manufacturers due to our not liking their business practices, their exploitation of workers, and/or their treatment of the environment. This has been particularly true of our grocery shopping and our eating habits.
However, one area that has made me pause is with clothes. It is so easy for many of us Americans to simply run into one of the plethora of stores found in any line of strip malls across the country to pick up a t-shirt or a pair of jeans. But, it’s extremely difficult to shop for clothes without seeing tags saying that the item was made in some third world country, in which you have no idea whether the people working there have received fair wages or fair treatment for their work. Today I received clothes from Fair Indigo–a company that embraces fair trade and brings eco-friendly clothing to consumers. Based on Fair Indigo’s website they take fair trade very seriously by visiting each facility where their products are made and getting to know the workers. In fact, they include a card on each item with a short biography of one of the possible sewers that made your particular item, which I found to be pretty cool. They also work with social auditors to ensure that fairness is being practiced within each facility. To me this is a wonderful approach that Fair Indigo has established in an industry that is so commonly riddled with the exploitation of workers, many of whom are often children.
While we still have a bit of a road ahead of us to change our ways entirely, I feel good that I found and shopped at Fair Indigo. And I feel really good knowing where my few items actually came from and that they were purchased fairly. I will definitely be shopping here again!
Paradise Now directed by Hany Abu-Assad is the kind of film that reminds one that the story we hear in western media is but one story, and an aggregate political one at that. It is not the story of individuals–of the people living in the midst of daily conflict, of occupation, oppression, and fear. This film struck me with its humanity as it told the story of two Palestinian childhood friends who one day were chosen to embark upon the unthinkable. Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) grew up together in a West Bank refugee camp, and endured a life of limited movement, check points, intimidation, antagonism, and humiliation. The film, while adopting the perspective of Said and while arguably “pro-Palestinian”, seems to move beyond the typical political platitudes and gets past the polarizing effect of similar films. Instead Paradise Now gives us something more authentic–an honest view of what happens to lives under the pressure of occupation. The film offers insight on what drives a person to self-destruction as a final futile attempt to live a life of dignity.
At the start of the film, Said and Khaleb are selected for a suicide mission to Tel Aviv, which holds the promise of martyrdom and great honor. Over the next 36 hours, Said and Khaleb prepare for and embark upon their mission, only to have it disrupted long enough to ask the questions of their lives. In the scene embedded below, Said has just returned from the failed mission. Wanting to try again, he explains why he cannot return to the refugee camp.
Scene from Paradise Now
“A life without dignity is worthless.” That’s the premise that underpins Said’s argument in this scene. A life where dignity is systematically removed is made to feel worthless, a life without meaning, without hope, without home. Nashef’s performance is top-notch here and it is top-notch throughout the film along with support from Suliman. This film is artfully rendered and reminds us all that perspective is everything. What many have come to accept through mainstream western media does not fairly represent the stories of individuals (on any side of any conflict)–mostly good people in desperation to live good and free lives.
Aidan turned 7 this week and we’ve been in a state of celebration. My how time flies. It feels like just yesterday when we were in the stressful throws of an emergency C-section after a series of scary heart decelerations. As it turns out, he was Aidan, 4 days oldsqueezing his own umbilical cord in his little hand. We knew from that point that we’d be in store for more than our fair share of mischief from our little guy. Aidan was born eight weeks premature, and this was one of the scariest times of our life. Being so premature, there was a danger that his lungs would not be fully developed. Just prior to the C-section, they gave him steroids to rapidly develop the lungs to help avoid the scary possibility of some very serious problems. He weighed 4lbs 8oz when he entered the world–quite large actually for a baby eight weeks premature. (He was on track for being a huge baby if we went full term.) While we spent six weeks in the hospital with Aidan, he never needed a ventilator (just a CPAP, which is scary enough). He came home on a heart monitor as his heart tended to slow to dangerously low levels in the night. Let me tell you, Aidan, 7 years oldthere is nothing more terrifying than waking in the middle of the night to a screaming alarm indicating that you baby’s heart is not beating as it should. (Of course, this was almost always just a monitor lead that slipped off, but these were the days when I got all my gray hair. And I thought I’d be able to spread it out through Aidan’s teenage years.)
So, it’s seven years later and Aidan is doing just great. He’s a healthy, energetic (oh, so energetic) young boy filled with passion, love, and joy. We celebrated his birthday last week with his cousins and grandparents. We made hoops in the backyard and everyone (except grandma and grandpa) gave them a whirl. Aidan opened presents (he loved his stuffed animals most of all), and we all ate triple-chocolate ice cream cake. I even plucked out happy birthday on the guitar for him. (I’m just learning.)
On his actual birthday (midweek), Aidan wanted to go to a nearby water park for a day of water slides and drifting along the lazy river. It was a great day. They all are.
Fair Indigo Tagaware of our purchases–the companies we’re buying from, how things are made/grown, etc. We have actively switched stores that we shop at and have stopped purchasing items from certain manufacturers due to our not liking their business practices, their exploitation of workers, and/or their treatment of the environment. This has been particularly true of our grocery shopping and our eating habits.
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