Starved for Attention: What Will You Do?

I held a newborn baby this week who was only 8 hours old. I've never had children, and as the baby in most situations haven't had much opportunity to hold a newborn, so for me it was a big deal. He had perfect little fingers, miniature, robust, wrinkly reproductions of adult hands with perfect little finger nails.
Then, I saw this picture, this African hand so frail and far from the lusty vigour of its Canadian counterpart, and I wondered: how do we let this happen?
It's Thanksgiving, and the turkey is in the oven. Nothing elaborate this year...in fact, we've opted for the bone-in, pre-stuffed turkey breast option this year, since it's just the three of us (my parents and I). My husband is half a world away, and my brother chose to partake of what I can only imagine is a more organic celebration with his girlfriend on one of the gulf islands. Still, even our toned down feast comes replete with pumpkin pie, yams covered with brown sugar, butter and pecans, and homemade pucker-perfect cranberry sauce. And this, after a $200 dinner the night before at a gourmet restaurant!
I can't help but feel a sense of guilt as I eat. Here I am again, gorging myself on food, when around the world there are people emaciated with hunger, little children with aching, distended bellies subsiding on a few piddly mouthfuls (if that) a day. And I think, how often have I thought this, how often have I said this exact same thing, and how often have I actually done anything about it?
We all do it...we're aware of what's going on in the world. In an effort to seem more humane and less...spoiled...we tell our children not to waste an entire apple just because it has a bruise: "A child in Africa would be thankful to have that, bruise and all."
In some places in the world, we purposely leave food on our plates, essentially wasting it, because it's polite. We wouldn't want the chef to think he'd underfed us, now, would we? I always thought this particular pratice rather funny...I have very vivid memories of eating dinner with my best friend at 12 years of age, who happened to be Australian. At their house, you ate everything that you were dished up. My brother and I were sickeningly full the first evening we were there, but learned to eat with our stomachs, and not our eyes.
So, many of us have some sort of practice in place to reduce waste, either with table manners or composting or both. But how many of us do anything beyond? How many times have I thought about poverty and starvation in a place like India, and what have I done about it? Zilch. Nothing. I eat extravagant food, and I'm the first to admit that despite my childhood lessons to do otherwise, I pick off the bruises on my apples, and I still take too much and then don't eat it because my eyes were bigger than my stomach.
I AM the reason children are dying in 3rd world countries. I have everything I need, so I wince and whine about our foreign policy and lack of efforts as a nation to combat starvation in war- or plague- or drought-ravished areas, but that's as far as it goes. I'm complacent.
I think it's great that celebrities are out there, donating their money and their time to making a difference. Oprah, for example, has donated millions of her own personal fortune to charity, although sometimes I have to wonder about the selflessness of a woman who chooses to put her own portrait on the cover of every single issue of her magazine...a little narcissistic? The band Bedouin Soundclash advertised over CBC Radio that they would give away a trip to India for their Mumbai concert to some lucky fan who donated through their website to Unicef's efforts. And now, they even have awards for celebrities who donate their time and money. Case in point: the Bob Hope Charity Award, given this year to George Clooney at the Emmys. What a funny culture we live in...
When I think about creating great story in my life, I think about finding value. We all find value in different things, but in the end, for me, value will come from feeling as if my life mattered, as if I did something beyond myself and my little bubble of existence that made a difference to someone "out there".
As I eat my turkey this evening, I will be very thankful for all that I have. I have parents who love me, and a wonderful husband that I adore (even despite the fact that we are not together for the holidays this year), and friends who bring me joy and share with me the wonders of life as they bring their children into the world...and I will be thankful for my food, and will waste not one morsel if I can help it.
But I also want to share my sense of thankfuless, and that involves giving.

I received in the mail this week an action kit from Doctors Without Borders, called "Starving for Attention," aimed at getting action started at a local level to raise funds and awareness of starvation in Africa. My stomach twists in knots over the casualties of western bureaucracy, mostly young children who are dying of hunger because of politics and the fact that we just can't seem to figure our crap out. I think it's time to at least try to do something about it. Last year, my students put on a drama production that raised $600 in relief following the earthquake in Haiti. We raised awareness, and did something to address the issues that came up as a result of the earthquake.
I've always taken my own thankfulness for granted, but I've always had something to be thankful for. I am thankful for life, but not everyone can say the same. If I were living on the street, a woman who has known nothing but abuse and violence, would I be thankful? If I were a child with nothing to eat, with parents dying or dead of AIDS, would I be thankful? I want to share my state of thankfulness, to raise someone to a place where he/she can feel thankful too, and that requires taking some initiative, getting out there and doing something about it. So, tonight, I'll open up my action kit, and see how I can help.
What will you do?