Well, it's been some time since I posted anything to this blog. While we were in country there was so much to do outside and inside that I got way behind on posting. I took plenty of pictures with the intention of blogging about it, I'm going to post this one as a quick and simple one to get me used to posting here again.
As the title suggests, it's about something as simple as peanut butter.
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| Creamy goodness invented in USA |
"Red and white" is a US private label that seems to be the standard value brand available at most of your local Chinese Stores. Peanut butter, Invented in 1884 by a couple doctors as a solution to get protein into patients without teeth, this wonderful solution is the best thing that bread ever met.
If you look at the two pictures, you'll see the price tag is still on it. You still don't see many bar code readers down here. Heck, most places just write the price on the product with a sharpie! Anyway. when you compare the two brands here in the states, you'll see we are spoiled rotten.
Doing the math... $4.95 for the bargain brand vs $16.95 for the brand name. Now granted the Jif is a 40 oz tub vs the 18 oz container of red & white brand. It works out that Jif is $0.42 / ounce vs the bargain brand coming in at $0.27 / ounce, darn near half price. When you compare shop here at home, Wally world (Wal-Mart) comes in at $0.10 / ounce for the Wally brand and Jif is $0.12 / ounce for the same peanut butter.
Keep in mind that the prices in Belize are in Belize dollars which is worth 1/2 of a US dollar. So, the $16.95 tub of Jif is really only $8.50 US, double that of the store shelf at Wally. Now, when you take a look at the local economy and you meet enough people, you'll find that most folks here are not even scratching the surface of poverty line in the US. Most construction work pays $25 US per day, common local work pays as little as $12 US per day. When you factor that in to a $8.50 US tub of peanut butter, all the sudden even the 'bargain' peanut butter is quite expensive.
Now if I have your attention, that's amazing. I'm not finding this post to turn out near what I had thought when I first took the picture of the Jif. Now, keep in mind, I bought the Jif and actually found the picture of the red and white on a friends blog that lives on the south side of Corozal.
The point I'm trying to make is that when you move to a completely different culture, you will have to pay dearly for the special imported brand name from USA, you have to learn to be happy with whatever you find.
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| That'll show 'em |
I saw a posting last night (concerning the election outcome) that showed a picture of thugs protesting the results while looting stores and setting things on fire. The meme says "Protesting that the new president will destroy the country...while actually destroying the country". When you get outside of our daily reality of cheap peanut butter and free school lunches and meet a 14 year old boy who is "done with school" because his parents can't afford to send him to high school it makes you really understand just how blessed we are in this nation.
Romans 13:1 says "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God". When you plug that into the current unrest in the US it simple to see that it is a direct result of turning our back on God. Having peace in the fact that the creator of this universe is very much in charge of who is president of where you work, Sheriff of where you live, and President of the nation you hail. We have free will and we can choose who we want to represent us in office but when it comes down to it, God stirs the hearts to "...turneth it whithersoever he will." (Proverbs 21:1b) When you plug in the perspective of how blessed we are in this nation with just how hard it can be a 2 hours plane ride south to get peanut butter, we really don't have much to complain about.
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