Cus we're the three best friends that ANYBODY could have!

One of the topics we were discussing in class was "lack of community". It's so easy it is to swoop by McDonald's and pick up a Big Mac and a large fry as opposed to spending a lovely evening with your friends and family making a complete, healthy dinner. It perplexed me to think about this, because almost every night my friends and I make dinner together and spend the evening eating and drinking and laughing and being a family. Awww. Here's some pictures of a fiesta where myself and 2 of my best friends (Steve and Elise) all contributed to the preparing and cooking of a wonderful meal. The beer helped too.







Here's Steve, getting the barbie que ready some beef for our fajitas.




Me and Steve, bein' awesome.




Steve and Elise, bein' adorable.




Here I am, cutting the beef up to cook with the peppers.




Elise spicing up the pinto beans!




Everything hanging out on the stove.




Final product! Delicioso!




This "community" business really is connecting with the Intercultural Communication class I'm taking. On the happiness poll, America scored not too terribly (#16). Yet everyone was so incredibly concerned and unhappy (ironic) that we didn't score higher, and they all wanted to know why. It's because we all would rather spend money on ourselves: bettering our own homes and getting a better car than our neighbor and buying our children cell phones and iPods. Personally, I'd rather spend 50 dollars on groceries for me and my friends to survive off of for the month than to buy an outfit to go be seen at The Mucky Duck.

Poverty is relative

The reading about poverty made me think of this site my friend sent me. It's pictures of family food consumption by country. I'm not exactly sure if it's by week, month, or year (my best deduction would be month), but the pictures are quite startling in both good and bad ways. The amount of packaging was interesting to see vary from country to country.

Here's the site: Family Food Consumption

And here's a few pictures from the site:




Germany and United States were numbers 1 and 2





Mexico was 7, and United States showed up again as number 8.






Ecuador was 13, Bhutan was 14, and Chad was last on the list at number 15.

The family living in Bhutan only spends 5 dollars on groceries every week, for 13 people no less! You can't even get a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread from Savemart for less than 5 bucks here. Someone living in the United States may look down upon the family from Bhutan, but who are we to say they are unhappy?