Art By: Shreha Regmi

That link on Facebook literally made me cry. And this time the link didn’t direct me to some emotional movie; rather, I was directed to a YouTube video titled “Haitians eat dirt cookies to survive”. Haitians, people of Haiti are eating mud cookies for day-to-day survival.

These cookies look similar to pancakes. These are made from vegetable oil, mud and salt. Women spends their whole day preparing these cookies. A woman claimed that though these cookies do not add any nutritional value they fill their empty stomach. People are convinced that these cookies are rich in calcium and minerals and eat a lot of cookies to get enough calcium.

That video made me think more than a lot. I questioned myself, why are you wasting that burger just realizing that the chicken inside the burger is not juicy enough? I answered to myself. Damn! I am lucky enough to at least afford food.

I must say it is terrible substitute to food and the whole idea is wrong. How could generations-to-generations survive just on dirt? It was shocking to hear that they are used to those cookies and those grimy faces of kids made me cry.

This is most probably the weirdest market in the world. The visitors would see the markets of Haiti full of mud cakes and cookies. They cannot afford nutritious vegetables and cannot even grow vegetables and grains because of high cost of fertilizers. It is a question to think that how could people eat nutritious food who fail to sell a sack full of mud cookies for less than $5.

The lesson I learned is that never waste a single bite of food. It’s not only the case of Haiti. Several reports show that 12 people die of hunger every single minute in Africa. Though you cannot help those hungry people at least respect food you eat every time. Instead of having dinner out every day, you could save some of money for 5 million undernourished people in Nepal.