Category Archives: Women’s Issues

Apr25

Malaria,Garlic, and DEET

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Malaria,Garlic, and DEET

Caroline

We were given a pharmacopeia of Malarial drugs and told to pack 100% DEET insect repellent for our 6 month overland trip to Africa years ago.  It worked pretty well, until we hit Sub-Saharan Africa that is (where the Malaria is really a problem).  There we found the mosquitoes laughed at our DEET, and feasted with abandon on our flesh.   Our driver, who had been this route before, laughed at our flailing dances as we slapped at the insects.  He told us the one sure preventative he had found to work, and it wasn’t pretty, but miraculously effective. We each ate a whole clove of garlic a day, and that seemed to keep the mosquitoes away.  Go figure! This was at the point in our trip when we were crossing through remote areas where we went for almost a month without a proper shower. We were camping the whole way and would resort to standing out in the occasional torrential rainstorm with shampoo and a bar of soap to do the best we could.  Scientist theorize that the garlic oil exuded from the skin after eating garlic forms a natural repellent barrier to mosquitoes, possibly obscuring the scent that attracts them.  This may be where the garlic repelling vampires comes from.  As you can imagine we stank something terrible, but since we were all in the same shape it didn’t really seem to bother us.

About a year later, my friend Caroline who had been on the Africa trip, and now lived in Washington D.C., became very ill.  Her fever was extremely high, but then the next day it was completely gone, and she felt fine.

Caroline in Africa

This repeated itself for a few days before she went to the doctor, who was also perplexed.  I can’t remember exactly how they came to the diagnosis of Malaria, but when they did the teaching hospital was apparently excited to have a live case to present it’s residents. She was treated and completely cured, the only lasting effect being a great story to be told.

Although malaria was eradicated in the U.S. in the 1950s, cases do appear every year mostly brought back by travelers.  Mosquitoes here still pose the slight threat of encephalitis and West Nile virus which can both be deadly.  I have avoided the 100% DEET since my Africa trip, but that’s not to say I can get away with eating a clove of garlic a day either. I would keep much more than just the mosquitoes away if I did!  As a mother I like to avoid chemicals as much as possible and the American academy of Pediatrics recommends that repellents used on children contain no more the 10% DEET. Some of their examples are:

Photo by Elizabeth Atalay

OFF! Skintastic for kids pump/spray has 5%DEET

OFF! Skintastic Fresh Scent Lotion 7.5% DEET

Just for Kids pump/spray 5% DEET

Repel Camp Lotion for Kids Lotion 10% DEET

Above all else, I prefer to use all natural products on my children such as Brittanie’s Thyme Outdoor Harmony Organic Bug Spray which can be found at Whole Foods or ordered online. Brittanie’s Thyme was kind enough to send me a sample of their bug spray and bug bite relief (both organic) to review in my quest for organic products to use on my family.  I like the fact that this is a company owned by women committed to organic, safe, sustainable and socially responsible products.  Though the scent is very strong when first applied, it is that which keeps the bugs at bay.  The bug bite relief is soothing and has natural anti-itching and antibacterial properties as well.

Photo by Elizabeth Atalay

 

Unfortunately outside of this country a child still dies from Malaria every minute.  Today has been declared World Malaria Day in an effort to bring attention to a preventable and curable disease who’s victims are most often under 5 years old. The simple step of distribution of  insecticide-treated bed nets can save lives.

World Malaria Day 2012 #endmalaria

www.malarianomore.org/minute

 

Watch the brief video below for more information:

click to watch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*  I received a free sample of Brittanie’s Thyme Organic Bug Spray and Organic Bug Bite Relief for reviewing purposes.   All my opinions are my own and not swayed by outside sources.

Apr23

The Power of ONE; Bringing Vaccines to Ghana

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The Power of ONE; Bringing Vaccines to Ghana

In the developing world more than 7.6 children die each year before they reach the age of 5 due to preventable or treatable diseases. Many of these deaths could be prevented through simple, cost-effective vaccines that fight diseases like pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, and polio.  Here in the U.S.A. we take the availability of vaccines for granted, but for millions of parents across the world they are simply inaccessible.

Photo by Elizabeth Atalay

Today ONE.org is on the ground in Ghana with a team of Bloggers from ONE Moms to document the inoculation of children there for the first time with vaccines to prevent pneumonia and diarrhea.  The White House credits ONE and it’s supporters with pushing for monetary commitments to help fund the GAVI campaign  (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations) last year. By 2015 millions of lives will be saved by actions you may have taken to support the campaign.  All this goes to once again prove the power of one.

You can follow along on the trip on Facebook and Twitter (#ONEMoms @ONECampaign #vaccineswork #GAVIAlliance) and of course the ONE Moms Blog to get the latest information from the field.  You can also follow the blogs and tweets of those traveling with us to Ghana:

 

Ana Roca Castro, Babble Voices @AnaRC @BabbleEditors

Amy Graff, BabyCenter, @bayareamoms

C.C. Chapman, CC Chapman/Passion Hit TV @cc_chapman                                  

Rich Galen, Mullings @richgalen

Bryant Shannon, Life In Rupees, @BShannon

 

Apr16

Visit To The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Part 1

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Visit To The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Part 1

When my husband was invited to speak at a medical conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, he was honored by the invitation.   Despite the fear of the un-known, and the idea of being so far away from the kids, I desperately wanted to go with him. Not knowing what to expect we asked advice from someone familiar with the country.   He sent back an e-mail saying I should probably stay home “since there is virtually no tourism, as a woman she may not be able to go out on her own, and she would have to wear their traditional dress”.

He had me at “no tourism”.  The exact thing to say to me that would make me want to visit a place more than ever.  I have always been electrified by entering into a culture different from my own.  Even more so knowing it is a country difficult to get into.  Though word is that tourism restrictions are easing up, you still must be invited to go to Saudi Arabia,  there are many business travelers, but the majority of tourism permitted is for groups.  Islam was founded there, and the two holy pilgrimage cities of Mecca and Medina draw millions of visitors each year. In fact every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to make the trip is required to do so once in their lifetime.

My in-laws with the boys

The real key to any travel for me is my amazing mother-in-law. My father-in-law often can’t join her due to his work constraints, but she will still always come to help us out.   With four kids I would not be going anywhere without her!  Our kids are always so excited to spend the time with her; they barely mind us taking a trip.  It is an incredible feeling for us as parents to know our kids are completely safe, happy and loved while we are away.  (I am deeply grateful, and highly aware of how lucky we all are for her!)    Though I have joyfully to set aside my wanderlust to raise our children, a unique opportunity such as this was too much to let pass by.  I have always been fascinated by the experience as a traveler to have to forget everything I think I know, and try to figure out another set of customs and social norms in different countries.   When the written language is entirely different it gives one the sense of being a child in a way, vulnerable but trusting and it is always an enlightening scenario.  It also gives me a great empathy for foreign visitors in my own culture, and an opportunity to see how universally kind and generous most people really are.

Trying on my hijab & Abaya before the trip. I got them on Amazon.com

Posing with female college students outside the Ritz

I had no problem with the idea of donning an Abaya and hijab, the traditional dress in public for Saudi women. As a visitor I feel it is just basic respect and good manners to adhere to the dress codes of your host culture, anywhere in the world.  Besides, I would much rather blend in and observe and learn than stand out and garner possible unwanted attention.   I bought my Abaya and hijab for the trip on Amazon.com.  Our hosts thoughtfully provided an abaya for me upon arrival as well, just in case.  Not all women had their head covered in public, but almost all did, so I personally felt more comfortable with mine under a scarf.

A model of what the city looked like 100 years ago.

The trip did not disappoint.  In Saudi Arabia where the language is Arabic, we could not even begin to understand announcements or decipher the writing or signs.  We did however find that many people we met spoke English, which they are taught in school.  The crime rate is extremely low and we felt very safe.  We returned deeply touched by our host’s hospitality and the kindness of the people we met.  The modernity of the city impressed us, as well as the emphasis on higher education, and the rich history of the region.  Previously a tribal and nomadic population, the country and the city of Riyadh itself is young.  100 years ago there were approximately 19,000 people living in the desert oasis that became the Kingdom.  Today the city is a metropolis rising like a vast shimmering mirage out of the sand with a population in and around the city of nearly 6 million.

A night view of part of Riyadh 2012

Modern architecture, impressive medical facilities, and all the iPhones in use make you feel like you could be in any major city in the world.  Shopping malls boast high-end stores from the GAP to Missoni, and include  food courts with McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Dunkin’ Donuts, while American chain restaurants line the main shopping streets. In this way Riyadh was very much the same as home.   The call to prayer five times a day, the dress code, the separation of men and women and the desert that surrounds the city as far as the eye can see and beyond are up front reminders of the differences. In our brief visit, my world was opened wider, I feel like I learned so much and am excited to share some of it with you over my next series of posts.

Mar30

Guest Post: When A Mom Goes Back To School

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Guest Post: When A Mom Goes Back To School

GUEST POST: WRITTEN BY LISA DAVIS

Like many moms out there, I decided to go back to school in my late 30’s to pursue a new career-in this case, teaching. I started out taking one class at a local college with a good reputation. I figured I would get my feet wet and see how it went before I decided to enroll in a program to earn a teaching certificate. I had no idea what to expect or what the other students in the class would be like. Let’s just say it was a class composed primarily of nontraditional students.

At the end of my first day of class, we all had to sign a form authorizing a background check in order for us to be allowed to observe in the classroom and work with the children we would be observing.  A (much) older man in the class who, quite frankly, gave me the creeps (he lived with his 90-year-old mother, watched altogether too much TV, and seemed just nuts in general) absolutely refused to sign the form! He started yelling how he didn’t want anyone prying into his private life and that he didn’t need a background check.

At this point, the teacher tried to explain that it was state law and he was required to undergo a background check in order to observe and that he needed to complete his observation hours to graduate from the program. The man was irate and eventually become irrational. Finally, the teacher suggested they speak about it privately after class. I remember turning to the student sitting next to me and commenting, “We’ve got a stalker in our class!”

On a different day in this same class, our teacher, clearly a foreigner and with a very thick accent, challenged us to determine which country he was from. He literally went around the room, asking each of us in turn if we could figure out what country he was born in. When he got to me, I blurted out, “Turkey!” He was shocked. He said that no one in his class had EVER gotten that question right and he demanded to know how I could have known that! I mumbled something about being good with accents and knowing lots of foreign exchange students in college. It was baloney. How could I admit that I knew exactly where he was from because just the night before on NOVA I had watched the gripping documentary, “The Family That Walks on All Fours” – about a Turkish family with a rare genetic brain abnormality that causes siblings to be mentally impaired and to walk on all fours like apes! That accent was stuck in my head for good after watching the movie.

Towards the end of the term, we were assigned a group project. I was thus introduced to “group work” – two particularly evil words. I have NEVER – NOT EVER — had a good experience with “group work” while in graduate school. I don’t know why-wait, yes I do! It’s because I’m the only one willing to do the work! So, for my group project I was placed with “stalker student” and this other student who had shown up to class a grand total of three times since the semester had started. Needless to say I did the vast majority of the work, all while trying to tame “stalker student’s” insane ideas and bring him back to planet earth. Fun!

It all makes our malleable little kids sound easier to handle! Have you thought about going back to school after having kids?

 

Mar24

Inspiring Women: Rana DiOrio

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Inspiring Women: Rana DiOrio

Rana DiOrio

 

I am a mother to four kids who on most days feels like I can barely keep my house in order and kids clean, fed and dressed.  Women like Rana DiOrio, the founder of Little Pickle Press, fascinate me.  Did I mention that she has three young children of her own? Rana agreed to let me interview her over the phone to assist me in my quest of understanding her particular breed of überwoman.

The first indicator of her destiny to be successful is probably in the fact that from a very young age she knew exactly what she wanted to be when she grew up.   She wanted to be a doctor, and though it may seem at first glance that she veered off her course, she would be the first to point out that despite detours along the way, she is on the path to doing exactly what she set out to do.  I asked her if she planned to go back to medical school, and she said no, but that she is now helping children in the way that she had always wanted to.  It turns out that the alternative route that she took ultimately made her uniquely suited to do the work that she does. When she was accepted to the Ivy League 7-year medical school she had applied to, around the same time the HMO came into existence, she did the math and recognized the long road to financial liquidity if she pursued medicine. Instead she went to law school where her investment in her education could pay off more rapidly.  She became a lawyer then an investment banker, and a real estate investor. Each career switch imparted various pieces of knowledge that she would ultimately put to use in forming Little Pickle Press.

Her first book What Does It Mean To Be Green? was written for her children.   It was Inspired by her own move from not very environmentally aware Rhode Island, where she grew up, to San Francisco in 1991 where she witnessed a different approach to the environment.  People in the Bay Area were already recycling, composting and eating locally sourced foods, all of which struck a chord with Rana.  She had already changed her way of living by the time she became a mom, so of course she was an environmentally conscientious mom. It was when she felt her children were old enough to begin to understand their relationship to the environment that she wrote the book What Does It Mean To Be Green? as a way to help explain it to them.  She wanted to give them the construct to comprehend sustainability, to write a book that served as a springboard for discussion of how to be green, so that they would not just do it because she told them to but because they understood why it was important.   It was a book that they read together and was intended just for them at that point.

When Barak Obama was elected President, her children were four and five years old, and there existed no context to help explain to them why this was such an amazing development.  She wrote What Does It Mean To Be Global? to  introduce to them the concept of diversity and accepting others with their differences. She wanted to plant the seed of the idea that we can only be successful within a community if we embrace diversity.  When Rana showed this book to friends, the feedback was so positive that she decided to see about getting it published.  Everyone agreed that her books were refreshing and distinctive.  Of course she knew the publisher could only be one with environmental integrity, but even the most progressive publishers print in China on virgin paper and still use dust jackets.  The Publishing industry as a whole she found was still entrenched in 20th century practices.  Rana saw an opportunity to build a 21st century publishing company.   There were a few elements she knew she wanted to include, the green publishing element was paramount. She sourced recycled paper, soy inks and made her books without dust jackets—superfluous paper that children inevitably remove and waste.  She also wanted to make sure to give back by donating a percentage of the revenue to a charity.  Having grown up with a brother who is a two time survivor of leukemia, Rana knows first hand how important support for the families and children with critical illness can be. Because of her experiences, 10 % of the revenue of her first three books is donated to Starlight Children’s Foundation .

I gave this one to my 13 year old!

Rana picked up the bible of the self-publishing industry The Well Fed Self-Publisher: How To Turn One Book Into A Full Time Living by Peter Bowerman.  Published in 2006, this book became the cornerstone of her research in forming Little Pickle Press.  At that point in time she could not have known that three years later she would be sitting on an experts panel with Peter Bowerman and have the opportunity to meet (and thank) him in person.

She has built a company that has become a certified B Corporation , a community of companies that strive to be the change they seek—environmentally friendly, humanitarian, and good to their employees. Little Pickle Press was recently honored as a Top Ten Best for the World B Corp with 10 employees or fewer.

Our discussion next turned to the power of women. Rana pointed out that she thinks women are gaining prominence in government and boardrooms because of the different way that they approach and solve problems.  Typically, women listen more than they talk and synthesize what they hear to devise strategies. Fewer egos tend to be involved and they know how to calibrate what they hear and observe to solve problems. Her advice to other women starting out is trust your instincts, listen to your inner voice, and rely upon your multifaceted skills and attributes.

This past week Little Pickle Press, won the Appy award in the Muticultural Media App category for “Being Global”.  The Appy Awards are the Oscars of the Digital world, and they pay tribute to the world’s finest and most exciting new apps in every imaginable category. The winners were announced Monday night in San Francisco,  competitor up against Little Pickle Press for the award was Disney’s “It’s a Small World” app.  Three years ago Rana DiOrio, who founded of Little Pickle Press did not know the first thing about the publishing world.   Since its inception in April of 2009 she has founded an Environmentally friendly publishing company, written and published numerous award winning children’s books, and has now successfully conquered the digital publishing world.  Meanwhile donating 10% of all book profits to charity.

The newest book in the What Does It Mean series

I fell in love with the books that Rana had written the moment I encountered them.  The messages they teach are all things I had been trying to impart to my own children for a long time,  finally I had found these comprehensible ways to help my kids understand important topics that can be tough to explain.  I loved the opportunity to find out more about the woman behind them in my interview with Rana DiOrio. I can not wait to watch Little Pickle Press Grow!

 

This month Little Pickle Press is offering the following Specials:

 

  • What Does It Mean To Be Green? is a FREE download in the iBookstore (http://bit.ly/green-ib) and in the Nook Bookstore (http://bit.ly/greennookbook) during the month of March, and all of our other eBooks are discounted.
  • We are offering 25% off and FREE SHIPPING on any order that includes What Does It Mean To Be Green? on our website during the month of March. Just enter LPPGreen2012 to take advantage of the offer.
  • Check back in to Documama.org on Monday for the chance to win all Four Little Pickle Press “What Does It Mean To Be…?” Titles Signed by the Author!