Charity

Do you remember those little UNICEF boxes they made us kids tote around on Halloween? They were little donation boxes that we carried about asking for donations along with our candy. Well I was fortunate enough to see the fruit of such labours. Nicole was asked to look at the scripts for the UNICEF funded soap opera. Yes, you paid for a soap opera. Of course there is a aim to the show, to teach the viewers about health issues. However Nicole - who is a doctor - says the show is blantantly inaccurate. For example, in one of the episode this city-girl who has become a mid-wife wanted to take a pregnant woman to the hospital to give birth. For various cultural reasons she won't go. So the mid-wife goes to the old run down health clinic, cleans it up a bit and finally convinces the pregnant woman to go there. Successful delivery, the midwife carries the baby out to the awaiting villagers and they applaud. Rafiki holds Simba aloft. In what world does cleaning a dibilitated building devoid of equipment ensure the succesful birth of a baby? Besides that the first season of the show has absolutely no medical information and is just there to hook the viewer. My toonie probably went to one of those episodes. Another blantant inaccuracy is that the people in the village seem to have jewels and live in mansions. In the real villages people live in huts of brick and straw. And of course all the villains in the show are ugly and all the good guys are beautiful and handsome. The show which is supposed to teach health issues won't even go to the people who need it most - the villagers - because many of them don't have televisions.

Indian soap operas are even more ridiculous then American ones. They have a lot of special effects, but there's only one kind. The camera zooms in on a characters face, the screen flashes black and white and you hear a kind of ominous rushing noise. This is to show shock and dismay. If it was used once in a while it would simply be weird, but its used constantly. And not just one person gets this gesture, everyone in the room does. Sometimes you'll get five or six of these rushing-zooms in a row. It's hilarious.

India really doesn't need more money. The government is so corrupt, the aid organizations so clueless that money really can't help.