Newsy.com: Africa, Aiding or abetting

Breastfeeding is not dirty.

At the end of Breastfeeding Awareness Week it is sad to know that less than 40 percent of infants worldwide are adequately breastfed. Since breast milk is essential in developing a baby's immune system and giving them the antibodies they need, which are not found in formula, more than 1 million infant mortalities every year could be avoided with breastfeeding.

What's even worse, or disgusting to me, is that people would discourage breastfeeding to suit their own personal comfort. A nursing mother is not worried about your own comfort, she is worried about that of her baby's. As an aunt to a 4 month old, I'm well aware and comfortable with the process of breastfeeding. That means I'm also aware of the social stigma some would attach to publicly breastfeeding and the worldwide misconceptions that WHO is trying to denounce through campaigns.

A mother's milk is full of antibodies that are absent in infant formula. The first few years of life are the most important developmentally, yet, the United States is still a far cry from protecting those influential years. If we want our nation to excel, how can we expect the next generation to succeed when we don't offer paid maternity leave, reassurance that new mothers won't lose their jobs, provide free ambulance rides for mothers in labor, or even just lift public support for nursing mothers? It is a fact that breastfed babies grow into healthy adults.

Support mothers who breastfeed. Reject the type of ignorance and stigma that our society attaches to this life-saving act. You can start here, by joining a petition against Facebook's ban on pictures of women breastfeeding. This is exactly the type of outrageous ignorance that WHO is trying to combat in developing nations, and yet, Facebook shows how ugly and self-concerned Americans can be. Change your own perspective, then that of others and save lives. It's that simple.

From the old to the young

She's staring at me with big, pebble-shaped brown eyes framed by baby lashes. They bounce up, down, up, down, as if she's riding a camel in the desert. Instead she's tucked into the full wrap of the woman in front of me, whose smooth face and strong arms make her appear to be in her early 20's.

Her mother hasn't seen me, so it's only her baby girl who stares at me with a confused expression. Her stern look and pouted face reminds me of my baby niece's furrowed expression when we make silly faces at her and she doesn't get the joke. I guess walking behind her my face is silly without me even trying. I smile at her and she reaches out her hand to try and grab me.

"Hi!" I say.

Her mother turns around.

She points a finger at me over her shoulder so the baby can see, turns to the innocent face and says to her daughter, "Obruni." White person. I give another smile.

Moments in blogging territory

Looking through my pocket travel journal from this summer I'm nostalgic but also frustrated that all the little stories I hoped would fill my blog didn't always come to fruition in print. I find myself wondering where that short story is about the man I met at Reggae night who declared that the U.S. was the best place for a black man. I'm searching in my journal for the passage about my first walk to work through the streets filled with hollowed out vans and shells of homes and the palpable feeling of all eyes on me as I made my way through them.

A part of me mostly worries that if I don't form the words on a page I will let those tiny moments slip passed my memory. So, I'm digging into my journal and bringing forth those moments as best I can.

I'm also changing the layout of my blog once again, for the nth time, due to the incessant headache I get when it loads on my page and I see white letters floating brightly in a deep black backdrop. Doesn't everyone feel like they're falling down the black hole underneath Eugene's passenger seat in Wristcutters? Well I do. And I'm slightly embarrassed that it also resembles a 14-year-old's Myspace page. Since it is my blog and I'm probably the only reader besides my grandmother - I'm doing it for us.