It is another warm day here in Guatemala.
The sun is really bright and the heat you feel on you is filled with warmth. Step into the shade and you soon realize what the elevation here brings with its cool dry air and arid climate. Just a short distance away and towards the pacific ocean (a one hour ride by chicken bus) and you would be bathed in your own sweat, yes in a tropical paradise.
I try to notice simple things.
Looking beyond my doorway I see petaled leaves of the courtyard trees arrange themselves delicately, splattered across the thin stick like branches. The leaves are a vivid collection of pink, magenta, and purple. A soft breeze gently caresses them making slight movements to the array. Some loosing grasp flutter to the ground. A petaled blanket.
I do not watch TV much preferring to connect with the people and alone I write stories, keep my blogs updated or read a good book. I am presently leafing my way through a James Patterson novel on crime and mystery. His words and thoughts well written, linger as I pattern together the jist of the story. It is a friendly escape.
One night recently I decided to watch TV. As my fingers surfed the channels with the remote control, I came across a program on CNN that had something to do with Guatemala. The show featured how medical supplies and other goods that where destined for Guatemala became lost in an mire of red tape and political mumbo jumbo.
Nothing new there.
The hypothesis of the show was how a company called Charity Services International, had collected funds destined for Guatemala. As charities are difficult to manage and yes detect inner corruption, those funds and medical goods had mysteriously disappeared.
Charity Services International is not a charity, but with its somewhat misleading company title, it certainly would fool a lot of people into believing it is. Me included.
Charity Services International, is one of such companies of many for profit companies, who's purpose is to collect funds for charities.
In some aspects such companies are needed, their fixed for profit focus well channeled into generating profit.
The missing sum mentioned was 40 million dollars and in such a poor country as Guatemala with its uneven wealth and power structure that sum would make a visible impact.
It has not.
While I see the production like the CNN show having a moral obligation in exposing wrong doings, what it also does is condemn a country and its people into a much worse case scenario. Mistrust of alleged funds for Guatemala and anyone thinking of donating now to help, will look carefully holding back donations badly needed.
There is a juxtaposition of values here.
The production contributes and exposes wrong doing yes, but all in the face value of self interest. CNN we have to remember is also looking for more exposure for itself, more viewers in a tight market. Yes 40 million dollars gone missing is not just a tidy sum but a huge massive amount, an immoral waste supposedly destined to assist and cure the needy.
It is also perhaps an exaggeration of the truth.
The Anderson Cooper show I witnessed was editorially well produced stabbing blame visually where needed. But hidden within the lines of journalism though, it also contributes to this problem.
The contribution it gives is not to trust, is not to give. This is ethically I believe immoral.
Where is that massive sum of monies?
Perhaps it lives within the imaginations of companies like Charity Services International allowing with its premise figures conjured and molded from representational needs. The premise being that the more money it supposedly collects, the more charities needing funding will look at this company as one that is professional and knows how to work effectively.
Regardless if that sum exists or ever existed, what this expose does, is hurt those that are in need the most.
Twenty percent of the population in Guatemala live on less than a dollar a day. In 2012, 9000 people starved to death. Children are most at risk with infant mortality rates higher than other country. Most children never go beyond the grade six education that is mandatory.
I see in this guise of a story something akin to the vulgarity that tabloid sensationalism is.
Instead of vaguely representing what is truth here with miss directed story babble, perhaps what was needed was discovery of the real truth first.
Instead the viewer was left with that empty feeling of corruption and that whatever happens in Guatemala is well deserved isn't it? After-all isn't it a country embroiled and wrapped in violence and corruption at all levels ?
Truth like history is written by those in control, the winners. The exaggerated presentation of what a country is or is not, is just misdirected truth. It has little to do with reality. We can generalize all we want but that has little to do with the real values or truths a country is all about.
I was appalled at CNN for presenting this visual escapade into fantasy. Get the facts first, then make the story fit those facts. The reverse may sell TV time, but what it truly really does is hurt those in need.
The sun is really bright and the heat you feel on you is filled with warmth. Step into the shade and you soon realize what the elevation here brings with its cool dry air and arid climate. Just a short distance away and towards the pacific ocean (a one hour ride by chicken bus) and you would be bathed in your own sweat, yes in a tropical paradise.
I try to notice simple things.
Looking beyond my doorway I see petaled leaves of the courtyard trees arrange themselves delicately, splattered across the thin stick like branches. The leaves are a vivid collection of pink, magenta, and purple. A soft breeze gently caresses them making slight movements to the array. Some loosing grasp flutter to the ground. A petaled blanket.
I do not watch TV much preferring to connect with the people and alone I write stories, keep my blogs updated or read a good book. I am presently leafing my way through a James Patterson novel on crime and mystery. His words and thoughts well written, linger as I pattern together the jist of the story. It is a friendly escape.
One night recently I decided to watch TV. As my fingers surfed the channels with the remote control, I came across a program on CNN that had something to do with Guatemala. The show featured how medical supplies and other goods that where destined for Guatemala became lost in an mire of red tape and political mumbo jumbo.
Nothing new there.
The hypothesis of the show was how a company called Charity Services International, had collected funds destined for Guatemala. As charities are difficult to manage and yes detect inner corruption, those funds and medical goods had mysteriously disappeared.
Charity Services International is not a charity, but with its somewhat misleading company title, it certainly would fool a lot of people into believing it is. Me included.
Charity Services International, is one of such companies of many for profit companies, who's purpose is to collect funds for charities.
In some aspects such companies are needed, their fixed for profit focus well channeled into generating profit.
The missing sum mentioned was 40 million dollars and in such a poor country as Guatemala with its uneven wealth and power structure that sum would make a visible impact.
It has not.
While I see the production like the CNN show having a moral obligation in exposing wrong doings, what it also does is condemn a country and its people into a much worse case scenario. Mistrust of alleged funds for Guatemala and anyone thinking of donating now to help, will look carefully holding back donations badly needed.
There is a juxtaposition of values here.
The production contributes and exposes wrong doing yes, but all in the face value of self interest. CNN we have to remember is also looking for more exposure for itself, more viewers in a tight market. Yes 40 million dollars gone missing is not just a tidy sum but a huge massive amount, an immoral waste supposedly destined to assist and cure the needy.
It is also perhaps an exaggeration of the truth.
The Anderson Cooper show I witnessed was editorially well produced stabbing blame visually where needed. But hidden within the lines of journalism though, it also contributes to this problem.
The contribution it gives is not to trust, is not to give. This is ethically I believe immoral.
Where is that massive sum of monies?
Perhaps it lives within the imaginations of companies like Charity Services International allowing with its premise figures conjured and molded from representational needs. The premise being that the more money it supposedly collects, the more charities needing funding will look at this company as one that is professional and knows how to work effectively.
Regardless if that sum exists or ever existed, what this expose does, is hurt those that are in need the most.
Twenty percent of the population in Guatemala live on less than a dollar a day. In 2012, 9000 people starved to death. Children are most at risk with infant mortality rates higher than other country. Most children never go beyond the grade six education that is mandatory.
I see in this guise of a story something akin to the vulgarity that tabloid sensationalism is.
Instead of vaguely representing what is truth here with miss directed story babble, perhaps what was needed was discovery of the real truth first.
Instead the viewer was left with that empty feeling of corruption and that whatever happens in Guatemala is well deserved isn't it? After-all isn't it a country embroiled and wrapped in violence and corruption at all levels ?
Truth like history is written by those in control, the winners. The exaggerated presentation of what a country is or is not, is just misdirected truth. It has little to do with reality. We can generalize all we want but that has little to do with the real values or truths a country is all about.
I was appalled at CNN for presenting this visual escapade into fantasy. Get the facts first, then make the story fit those facts. The reverse may sell TV time, but what it truly really does is hurt those in need.
