Aloha Everyone,
As I sit here in the comforts of my home, I often think about not so fortunate people in the world. I have traveled to more than 50 countries in my life and have gotten to know a lot of people up close and personal.
I am not the traveler who goes on the whirl wind tour of 8 countries in 14 days. I am the traveler who stays in one location for an extended period of time (as long as the surf is good…) and makes lifelong friends. What amazes me is that most of the really good surfing spots in the world are located in very remote areas. On my first drive to Central America in 1975, we had no running water. We did have well with a bucket that supplied all of our needs and electricity was spotty at best. On my first trip to South America in 1977, I rented a house on the beach for $40.00 a month and went to a communal water hydrant on the street where we filled up 2 buckets on a stick and then filled up a 50 gallon drum. My traveling buddy Glenn had to return to the states after 6 weeks because he contracted hepatitis from that water in the drum. Electricity came on for 2 hours a night if we were lucky. And that was a light bulb on a wire. On my first trip to Indonesia in the ’80′s we were on an outer island where there was no electricity and water was taken from the river where the locals bathed. That was a long time ago, but the situation is still the same in much of the world today. With a growing world population and industrial pollution of our rivers and water tables, clean, potable water may be a thing of the past in the near future for a large percentage of the world’s population.
Today, more than 35% of the world’s population do not have water for basic sanitation. 1 out of 6 or 17% of the worlds population does not have adequate access to clean water. In fact, about 5,000 children a day die from diarrhea related diseases which are directly caused by dirty water.
What can you do? Financially support any non-profit organization that you feel best addresses this problem. I support “Clean Water for the World”. They are listed as a 501c3 non-profit organization. They provide simple, adaptable water purification systems to communities that do not have access to clean water at no charge.
Thank you.
Jamie
It’s super lame no one comments on your guys site, well not a lot lately. Anyway I just was looking on youtube and saw the chili video O.o that’s one righteous dude for swallowing the pepper. My mom is a die hard supporter of like every non profit known to man! It’s crazy, I don’t know how she does it, being unemployed and such. Everything from Tibet to human rights orgs to PETA. I’m commenting here because I liked the blog. BTW you guys are soo awesome. Organic all the way. American food industry sucks hard. And chili peppers are where it is at. I’m going to order from you guys or find some near by. I wanna ride the lightning ^_^
Comment by Wally — August 29, 2009 @ 12:30 pm
Yeah, it blows my mind that we get all the hits but not a lot of action on the blogs. It’s a lot of work to write them and make it accurate. We are changing our home page on Monday to give more attention to our articles. With so much BS going on, and with only a small percentage of the population aware, it’s crucial that we try to get the message out. It’s not hype, not BS, and only shows that most of us are sheep, unaware and following the masses. I will be writing an article on the “Monsantos” of the world and GMO seeds. What people don’t understand is these seeds do not reproduce and someday if they get their way, we will all have to purchase these GMO seeds each and every year to grow a GMO crop. Our ancestors smuggled seeds across the borders into this country to have their favorite crops. But these “heirloom” varieties are a dying breed. There are seed saver organizations, clubs, and local concerned citizens that trade these coveted heirloom seeds. Each and every year we lose many varieties of these seeds. And the real fear is that someday there will be no heirloom seeds and the multinationals will be able to control the food distribution in the world and then will be able to control the masses.
Comment by admin — August 29, 2009 @ 3:02 pm