Green & Gold

Many persons are going green these days in food, shelter, vehicles and more. Going Green, respecting the environment and our bodies is a movement that has some momentum. In a way we are slowly going back to the respect Native Americans had and, for the most part, still have for the land. Going Green is gold, since many are making a living off our turn to the green way of life. However, going green has a long way to go to be worldwide or to catch up to the media making gold out of picking persons and events and making them a major focus of our attention. These days it is the Green of the Green Bay Packers that is making gold for many in the media and out. Our small town team, that wears green and gold uniforms, is once again the spotlight of national media attention.

I say the above in no way to diminish the significance of the championship game this Sunday of the Green Bay Packers of Wisconsin with the New York Giants of New York and New Jersey. Although the game is in Green Bay and they are favored the Packers are still the underdog, small town in Wisconsin facing one of the largest cities in the world in New York. There is so much excitement about this game that we in Wisconsin will ease up on the going green stuff, sit down before our TV, snack on some non-organic food and drink some beer why we cheer on the Packers.

Today my friend Mathias of Friends Across Inc. came over to give me a gift. He had just returned from a visit to Sierra Leone, his native country, which he had fled as a political exile during the civil war that devastated the country. The war was fought over diamonds and left the county one of the poorest in the world. He told me of the horrible conditions in his home country where his child and wife still reside. At the hospital in his hometown, the one we are trying in Friends Across Inc. to ship an ambulance to, he said the doctors did not even wear plastic gloves for operations, like delivery babies. They wrapped plastic bags around their hands. In Sierra Leone they cannot even think about going for the Green or Gold since it is fight each day just to survive. His gift to me was a handmade over shirt and a small ceremonial hat of the same material. The shirt was tight on me since recently I have gained weight from eating wrong and not exercising. I continued wearing the tight shirt for the rest of the day, although my wife and son have told me how bad I looked in it. The tightness of the shirt is a reminder of the hunger and pain of the persons in Sierra Leone, while I sit, eat, watch TV, work on computer and do not exercise. The shirt motivates me to loose weight and to exercise, not just to make the shirt fit and be healthier, but to be in solidarity with people of Sierra Leone.

Green is Gold and Gold makes Green. May the Green Bay Packers win on Sunday and the people of Sierra Leone, whose diamonds were stolen from them in the civil war, find Gold.

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