Happy Easter

May the glory of this day bring you peace, hope and joy throughout the year.

Easter offers an enjoyable opportunity for inter-generational fun.  Why not gather the grandchildren or neighbors for an egg painting party?  Even a two year old can dye and color eggs.  All ages can participate – toddlers, teens, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents.   You may begin an annual tradition!

• Make baskets to offer to friends.  The baskets that berries and fruit or potatoes come in can be decorated with ribbon and grass and filled with eggs.
• Decorate a branch or small tree with eggs.
• Organize an Easter egg hunt in a yard or the neighborhood park.
• Run races where each person must run with an egg in a spoon.
• Have an egg roll, where you are on all fours and push the egg with your nose.

Most important is to enjoy!  This is a wonderful way to share your age-esteem.

Age Esteem is a basic essential for succeeding in social, economic and religious issues.  We must first feel good about ourselves at the age we are today, every day, if we are to be effective in our relationships with other women, girls, men and boys of all ages.  To be able to contribute our best and to nourish others and help them grow, we must first feel confident about ourselves.

This was reconfirmed by multiple speakers during the Commission on the Status of Women which I attended at the United Nations in New York last month.  The Honorable Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was one of these speakers.  Mrs Robinson insisted on our right to dignity and equality, sharing the opening sentence of the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states:

« Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, »

She emphasized that it is important to combine dignity with human rights.

Dignity

• Represents our inner sense of worth.
• Is relative to the cultural, environmental, social and spiritual.
• Depends on relations with others.
• Is holistic, encompassing all other aspects of life.

To have AgeEsteem is to age with dignity.

Grapefruit brings many beneficial properties to your health.

In aromatherapy grapefruit essential oil is extracted and used to improve or treat various conditions such as lack of muscular tone, water retention and toxicity in the body.  Baths, massages and skin care products using grapefruit essential oil are age-esteem soothing and healthy.

Grapefruit with its high content of vitamin C is known to help  prevent cancer and decrease cholesterol in the body.  Vitamin C is also very successful in lowering  blood pressure. Pink grapefruit is rich in beta carotene which is good for the eyes.  Enjoy half a grapefruit as a dessert or snack.

The fruit should be eaten as opposed to being consumed as a juice because there are chemicals in the pulp which enhance its efficiency.  Studies today suggest that it is better to eat all fruit than to drink the juice.  Fruit juice is higher in sugar and enables bad cholesterol to form in the blood.

Grapefruit is also used in combination with other scents as the top note in some perfumes, emitting a fresh, citrus aroma.

Grandma Nature

Nature’s Pharmacy

Before modern medicine came into existence, people living in ancient civilization used vegetables, plants, herbs and spices to cure all kinds of diseases. This was true throughout Egypt, Rome, Greece and eastern cultures.

There is a pharmacy all around us.  It abounds in nature, growing within our reach. More and more studies confirm that there are medicinal properties in the food we eat.

Fruits and vegetables can help cure or contain diseases or improve medical conditions. Remember the old saying, «An apple a day keeps the doctor away»? Well, this is also true of bananas.  If eaten regularly, bananas help to lower blood pressure because of the high potassium content which can also control the regulation of sugar in the blood.  This is why athletes eat bananas when energy is needed; for example tennis players during a strenuous match.

Spices bring much to the body as well, calming pain just as cloves do for tooth aches.  Herbs are wonderful for beauty treatments and relaxation.

There is such a vast amount of knowledge today with proof that what we find growing in the earth can help us live longer and healthier lives. – As well as soothe our bodies and make us happy with their wonderful scents and calming effects. We actually feel younger!

Walking in nature among trees and flowers, in fields, in the mountains, alongside lakes and rivers, and gardening in our own backyard lower blood pressure. – And uplift the soul.

J.B.

World Day for Water – March 22

Our daily lives depend on and are shaped by water. Without the water that surrounds us – the humidity of the air, water from rushing rivers and the kitchen tap – our lives would be impossible.  Eighty percent of our bodies are formed of water, and two thirds of the planet’s surface is covered by water.   Water is our life.

Water is a basic nutrient that is also important for our age-esteem.  It is basic to our level of energy.   Healthy levels of hydration in our body influence how we feel about ourselves.  It is recommended that we drink 1.6 liters or quarts of water per day to maintain healthy levels of hydration, something that is not easy in many parts of the world.

Pauline Mawaka in her interview (see March 21, 2010) referred to several secrets to her own AgeEsteem.

• Purpose: When she retired she began the Senior Women Citizens for Change in Kenya to combat the violence against older women.
• Passion:  She lives her passion for helping women.    “Women encourage me, so I keep my energy.”
• Control:  Pauline says, “I control my own life.   I control my thoughts and my body.”
• Sing:  Do something that you love, that lightens your heart.
• Reach out:  Pauline’s purpose is directed towards “shaking the world”, and bettering the lives of Kenyan women.
• Social contact:  She has regular interaction with others through her singing and work.
• Spirituality:  “Knowing that God loves me” makes it possible for her to continue despite difficult situations.

The theme for this year’s  international day, held on March 21, is Empowering Youth to Fight Racism.

A key to eliminating our own discrimination is to feel good about ourselves.  We need to feel secure and confident in ourselves as we are today in order to accept others who are different due to race, religion, culture, age, gender…  AgeEsteem is a key factor to accepting others for who they are and respecting differences.    To empower youth is also to instill age-esteem in their lives.

Pauline Mawaka   Executive Dir. Of Senior Women Citizens for Change

When Pauline Mawaka retired as a school teacher she decided to help change the lives of aging women in Kenya.  I had the privilege to meet Pauline in Nairobi and to learn first hand how she is going about this.  The following words are hers.

“After retirement I began creating awareness of violence against women and in other communities in Kenya.  I have been in most areas of Kenya to say that you must identify yourself as a woman in the community.  Speak out if you are violated.  No one else will speak for you.  Don’t be oppressed.

When women are beaten by their husband they feel that they let him down or failed.  They say they fell down the stairs.  Women are afraid to tell the truth.  We have now started to speak to schools and have women come out and say that they are beaten.  But the problem is that the Police laugh saying the problem is domestic.  This is changing as we get many women to come out.  At the grass roots they are still very oppressed.  I work in the slums of Nairobi.  Women who came from the country did so because their husbands violated them.  Then they come and stay with men in the slums and they are again violated.  They have a red eye or swollen cheek.  With time I think they will understand.  They’ve been oppressed for years.  It takes time.

I got married to a man who believed that a woman is a woman and her place is in the kitchen, but because I was involved in issues of women’s rights I decided I would say no to violence.  He still violates me, but I stand by my rights.  I have declared my rights.  My daughters too.  When a man came to marry my daughter, she said to me, “No, Mommy.  This man is like my dad.  I don’t want to marry him.”  She had seen her father shouting at me and telling me I’m stupid.  And that man is jobless.  I am the one who brings food on the table.  I am the one who has been caring for my children up to now.   He did very little to support.  But regardless of what he did I said that I wanted my children to go to school.  I wanted my children  to be educated.  All my 6 children have finished O levels.  One is working at the UN in NY as an accountant.  So it was like whatever this man was doing to me I didn’t care.  He couldn’t get me down.  I said I would stand firm and be sure that my children would have a good life.  They refuse to be violated.  To be married does not mean that I am a lesser person.

I sing.  When there are meetings like this, (World Council of the YWCA) I come.  Sometimes men don’t let us attend this type of meeting, but I do.  I control my own life.  I speak up.  My husband can call me a mushy brain, say that I am crazy.  Regardless of what I have been told I have walked and gotten on with my life.   Nobody lives my life except myself.  I control my thoughts and my body.  If I didn’t do that, I would not be here.  I would already be dead.  Although my husband never beat me, he abused me with insults.  When he says this I say Thank you.  All you say goes back to you.  I bounce them to you.

I still am here.  At the end of the day he lost his job.  I struggled as a teacher to provide and raise our children.  The man cannot say ‘Mama thank you, you are trying’.  Instead he says I am stupid.  I tell him stupid does not come into my mind but if you call me stupid I bounce it back to you.  One thing he has never done is to touch me.

I know I have a right in my home and in my country and I address it to other women.  I can help other women to say no.

I have a passion for women, and a purpose.  Sometimes when I listen to the women with their issues I just have water running from my eyes, but I know we can work together.  I must shake the world.  I can help women live happily.  It is because of violence that women cannot put food on the table.

When you are told from June to May that you are stupid, you believe you are stupid, you believe you are stupid.  Women encourage me so I keep my energy.  I think, God you love me and I will continue.”

An AgeEsteem interview* with Pauline Mawaka, 65, Kenyan, Executive Director Of Senior Women Citizens for Change

The following text is in the words of Pauline Mawaka.

“It’s difficult to be 65 in Kenya. If you’ve been working you migh get a small pension.   Because I’m a teacher by profession I get a pension which isn’t enough.  But if an old woman never worked she has nothing.  The older persons in our communities rely on the younger people, but the young people these days are not employed.  Many are without jobs.  When our young people are not employed the elderly people and the entire family suffer.

We believe that when we educate our children they must move on with their life. – And even if our children are working we should not rely on them for support.  Even though you are retired and get a little money which will not cover your usual needs to maintain your life.  Sometimes you must go to the hospital because you are ailing. It is very difficult even for these educated children to support the older people.  What we do is encourage older people to begin income generating activities, but we don’t have funds for that.

By necessity you become independent.

I have lived in the city for a long time and the work I do now with senior women is because I am in the city, but I also do a lot of work in the rural area.  I have gone to the grass roots and met many women who are retired.  Often they are idle; they have no activity because they fear they are lost.  I am a teacher and I try to help these women.

Most of us women are violated in our lives.  It is especially the husband who violates and there are issues of rape and incest.  It effects the older women, some of whom have been raped by their own sons.  Women have been raped while going to the market.  Women my age.  They say nothing.  Most of them who have this violence are afraid to speak.  At their age people think they are mad.  Its important to create awareness and to break the silence, so they are talking.  They are telling somebody.

When we retire we are considered old.   I retired at 55, that is the law of Kenya.

The average person lives to 55.  Few live to 80.  When people retire they become idle and die before their time.  They don’t even have enough money to take care of themselves, but this improves with time.  We encourage them to do something after retirement.  Like me I am 65 and I am thinking of living longer.”

This personal interview took place in Nairobi, Kenya. The interview with Pauline Mawaka continues tomorrow.