In my senior years, I seem to have a clearer picture why developed countries like Canada remain rich and developing countries like Haiti, struggle to feed their people.
I also dislike food fights, because it shows our arrogance at being rich, with little sensitivity for the poor.
Every Halloween, I noticed the hundreds of pumpkins being wasted at the pumpkin toss.
It might be fun for some, but is it any different from a food fight and the lesson we are teaching our children?
In these days of food-banks and homeless people, the pumpkin toss seems such a waste of good food.
Just imagine, if some pumpkins are used to teach our children to make pies and other food for homeless drop-in centres.
What an education and bonding that would make for our family.
While on projects with Mayan indigenous people in Chiapas, Mexico, I was invited to dinner in a semi-dark thatched roof hut.
The meal was pumpkin soup, with unidentified hard pieces, that was discarded.
It was not until later I realized that the pumpkin was chopped and cooked with the outside skin and seeds included.
The people were too poor to throw away any part of the pumpkin.
Tossing pumpkins for a few seconds of thrill, where a fee had to be paid and pumpkins later placed in the compost, tells a lot about us as a rich people, where waste for some seems an everyday occurrence.
Vince Ramcharran,
Prince George
