"We live in our secure surroundings, and people die out there"

Most of us PCVs have at some point laughed about the giant tumors that many Bulgarians seem to have on their necks or faces. You see these big tumors and wonder what kind of abnormalities they might have in covered places or inside their bodies.

I met this older Bulgarian man who was so very friendly. He told me all about his family and his past. He told me that he had a son who had died of cancer when he was in his teens. He told me that many people died of cancer during those years from Chernobyl.

Is it possible that the high precedence of tumors and cancers are connected to the toxins spread 20 years ago? How many people across the former soviet block have gotten cancer as a result of the disaster at Chernobyl? Across Europe?

My friend Sarah is an English teacher in the Ukraine. She's told not to drink the water under any circumstances.

My mom has a good friend who moved to the Nashville area from Sarajevo, BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina). When we where there, we visited her brother and sister-in-law. They had recently had a beautiful set of twins, after a very difficult pregnancy and an early delivery. My mom visited her friend recently and received very bad news. The sister-in-law, Ivana, has a baseball sized tumor on her rib. Mom's friend informed her that in BiH many babies get cancer, and of a baby who was born with cervical cancer.

Cancer every where, under any circumstances is devastating and disgusting. We wonder at the strength and courage of survivors. In America, and most of the developed world, we are so fortunate to have access to advanced medical technologies with which to fight these heart breaking and deadly struggles. But in countries only remotely developed, like those in Eastern Europe, not only do the not have the medical access to fight cancer as well, but they are not as well equiped to detect these ailments early and to fight it quickly, which we know is essential in the defeat against cancer.

What to me is especially sad, is that these people have so many other things in their lives to worry about. Many of you will never know how easy your life really is. If your greatest concern is the raise of gas prices, I won't feel sorry for you. Until you've had to get up at 4am to stand three hours in a bread line, until you spend your summer preparing for winter, until your family of four lives out of two rooms for six long months of winter, until your salary covers nothing more than your electricity bills, until your retirement payment is less than one meal at Cracker Barrel, I will not feel sorry for you.

Here's the sad part, I am aware of how very fortunate Eastern Europeans are compared to people in many other parts of the world. Central Asia is much worse off than here, and most of Africa is even farther behind.

I don't know why my rant against cancer led me to rant on world awareness... sorry

If you pray, please pray that this family doesn't lose a sister, wife, and daughter, and that those precious twins don't lose their mamo. And if you don't pray, find something you can do to help people less fortunate than yourself. And don't forget about the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor in Libya facing death for what is widely accepted as Gaddafi's scapegoat. Thank God, most of the nurses have family members who have recently received visas to visit them. Petition! Call your congressman! See what Amnesty International is doing! See if you can help save these people from dying at the hands of an unjust court. Please.

I would like to state my vision,

Life was so unfair.

We live in our secure surroundings,

And people die out there.

Bosnia was so unkind.

Sarajevo changed my mind.

And we all call out in despair.

All the love we need isn't there.

And we all sing songs in our room.

Sarajevo erects another doom.

Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Sarajevo.

Bosnia was so unkind.

Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Saraje-

Bosnia was so unkind.

Sure things would change if we really wanted them to.

No fear for children anymore.

There are babies in their beds,

Terror in their heads,

Love for the love of life.

When do the saints go marching in? [X4]

Walk on tip toe...

"Bosnia" The Cranberries