war damn world food programme

today was pretty awesome. we visited the world food programme headquarters, which are here in rome, italy. the world food programme is a sector of the united nations that focuses on emergency response and dealing with chronic hunger programs. currently they are stationed within around 72 countries. and this is a great company because 93% of their donations actually go to feeding people. they only have a 7% overhead, whereas many other relief programs are 15-20%.

they are mostly known for their air drops, which is when they drop rice bags from their airplanes. they explained to us today that it's funny that they're known for this because they don't do it that often. it's very expensive, and they can only do this is areas that are not densely populated.

droppin' some rice

in order to fight some chronic hunger issues, they have many different programs that they set up within countries. they have a school meals program where they give children food at school so that the parents have incentive to send their children to school. this helps a lot with little girls because in most countries young girls are not getting an education because parents send their boys to school while the girls stay at home to help around the house. but now young girls are receiving an education because there is food available at their schools. also, there are sometimes programs that send rations of food home to help the rest of the family. another great way to get children in to schools.

but they mainly preach that the key to conquering hunger lies in the women. they are empowering women all over the world by giving them the food baskets, which makes them the decision maker on how much each person gets. and usually when the woman receives the food, it is distributed amongst the family more evenly.

but besides the chronic hunger reduction programs, they mainly focus on emergency response. which i thought was really fascinating. they responded to haiti and actually were on the ground helping in one day. one girl, natasha, had actually gone for 3 wks to help because she spoke french, but she said that they already had a base in haiti because haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. their staff that lives there were greatly affected by the earthquake also, but showed up for work the next day to help others with the crisis.

flour

when an emergency happens they have many different things that they do. their staff is always rotating in and out of the field and offices, so they ended up deploying about 300 people to haiti immediately. they own 1 plane, are lent all of the rest, borrow ships, and hire truckers within countries to deliver food. it's interesting because they don't just deliver rice or any food that they receive. they ask for monetary donations because they have specific countries that are producing nutrient-rich foods for them.

the first food product we learned about was the high-energy biscuits. they are small and come in packets, which make them easy to eat. they are basically pumped full of nutrients to counteract malnutrition. then they have micronutrients that they can put on their foods that contain all of the vitamins and minerals that you need in a day. they are obviously mostly concerned with women and children, children 0-5 because malnutrition can cause many defects in infants and toddlers. but there are food baskets that are handed out that contain 2,100 calories, which is the amount of calories your body needs to consume a day to stay healthy. and they also adjust the food baskets according to the culture. like in haiti, they like rice so they gave them rice, but in pakistan they don't consume as much rice, so they receive more of the different kinds of foods, like flour. they try to respect the culture of the country they are working in.

so auburn university was the first university to actually team up with the world food programme a couple of years ago. when the earthquake hit haiti, auburn responded immediately, and within about 3 weeks we gave a donation to the world food programme of $15,000, which was the largest single donation they received from anyone. war eagle! today they have had about $50,000 donated for haiti relief.

they have some fun things to get involved with if you are interested. you can find all of them on their website. free rice is a website that you use for math or vocabulary, and for every question to get right, they will donate 10 grains of rice. they also have a video game that can be downloaded from the internet. but most recently they have created a youtube competition for people to submit videos they make and a team of judges (including the president of youtube, drew barrymore - she's a huge supporter, and many others) choose from the 5 most viewed videos a winner. the winners win a trip to a world food programme site where they get to film the efforts of wfp. some auburn girls actually won last year and are headed out in 2 wks. war eagle!

and i got a bag....... be jealous. you can buy them in the states, but they were less expensive here. email me suggestions to twist my interior design major in to something that makes me qualified to work at the world food programme..... besides it being cool, you are required to speak english there, everything is in dollars, everyone is good looking, and they serve all sorts of cultural food in their cafeteria (i had fried chicken and mashed potatoes for lunch!). where do i sign up?

my new bag

ninfa gardens

thursday school took us to the ninfa gardens. they are some structured, english gardens in the lazio region of italy, that used to be a medieval town that was eventually destroyed due to a family controversy over land. now the land is filled with plants and animals from all around the world. they don't use any pesticides, which is one of their interesting facts.

also, you can get married here for 400 euro..... so enjoy the pictures!

all of the water is crystal clear

i looove these flowers

pretty

an old building from medieval times

this interesting plant that grows around the trunks of trees

i found scottie an italian boyfriend named darco

calla lillies

darco begging for cydney's sandwich

prettiest.water.ever.

this is how cydney takes pictures

bambooooo

the whole group

sun dial

so beautiful. the end.

campo cestio

on tuesday we took a field trip to a well-known cemetery in rome called campo cestio. it has been around for centuries, with the main pyramid dating back to 30 bc. the focal point in the cemetery is an enormous pyramid that was built after the death of the roman emperor caius. he specifically wrote in his will that he wanted to be buried inside of a pyramid, but that the pyramid needed to be built in under 355 days. this task was completed, and his remains were placed beneath the structure.

entrance to the cemetery

in the 1730s, the campo cestio was built around the pyramid. this cemetery was specifically for non-catholics, who were non-italians but residents of rome. the only condition that allowed someone who was catholic to be buried here was if they were married to a non-catholic who was placed in the cemetery. campo cestio is still an active cemetery today, but due to space restrictions they only have a burial once or twice a month.

pyramid of caius

john keats’ burial site is one of the main attractions in this cemetery, along with others such as percy shelley and joseph severn. the headstones here are pretty fascinating, with all of the intricate stonework and different religious inscriptions. they have many different cultures and religions buried here, including muslims, russian orthodox, jewish descent, and more.

keat's and severn's graves

besides all of the neat headstones, they also have a cat colony. you notice in a lot of tourist spots there are usually a lot of animals (just like all of the dogs at pompeii). well there is an organization at campo cestio that actually organizes to put food out for the cats and they are all vaccinated, which is really nice.

cat colony

you can see their cat bowls under the shelves

you can tell how old this one if from all of the black from pollution

i think i am going to model my headstone after this one

dog included

petals

if you follow my blog then you know that i love angels. these two angels were my favorite in the cemetery. the angel of sorrow is actually a famous one with a replica at stanford university.

i love this angel

angel of sorrow

i really liked visiting this cemetery. it was really neat to see the close isles of graves because it gave it a really intimate feeling. and all of the headstones were so personal, which made it seem like you could understand the person who was buried there. i recommend going and just walking through it because it really is beautiful.

cinque terre

the last few nights of spring break was spent in cinque terre. cinque terre in italian means 5 lands. so it consists of monterosso, vernazza, corniglia, manarola, and riomaggiore. it's know for it's water, beaches, and hiking. i can't even imagine what this place would be like in the summer time. i bet it is crazy packed. but even though it was overcast while we were there, it was still beautiful and now one of my favorite places in italy!

we rode the train from la spezia to riomaggiore and it is the best surprise ever. you go in to this tunnel and then all of a sudden there are glimpses of cliffs and water. it's like the scene from the chronicles of narnia, lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, when they are riding on the train and then see the beach. it was literally like that scene because we were just seeing bits and pieces of water and everyone on the train was gasping because it's so beautiful.

we stayed in riomaggiore, the last of the 5 towns. this one doesn't have anything really going on in it. i would suggest staying in monterosso first, then either vernazza or manarola. those are the best of the 5 towns. i definitely liked vernazza second best. it has a lot of cool shops and the there is a swimming area that is cute.

so we didn't do much the first day because jordon was still recovering from his flu bug. but on saturday we hiked a lot. it was amazingly gorgeous. we took the train all the way to monterosso where we soaked up the beach.

here we bumped in to some american students from oregon and washington. they definitely came up to me saying, "scusa....," but i quickly cut them off and said i speak english. for some reason spending spring break with jordon people thought i was italian? explain to me how i look italian, especially wearing american brands clothes such as patagonia. a man at the airport when i picked jordon up asked me if our train was going to termini, so i responded with "si." then he proceeded to talked to me in italian and i wasn't able to understand the rest.... why do these people think im italian? i understand a little bit now, but i can't hold a conversation at all.

view from the riomaggiore train station

monterosso beach

jordon and i in monterosso

dolphin

i love this

this really neat facade of a church we saw in monterosso

bbbeeeaaccchhh

wwaattteeerrr

after we wandered around monterosso for a bit, we found a map and started hiking for vernazza. the map said that the hike would take about 2 1/2 hours. little did we know that we were going to be hiking stairs that were literally at 90 degrees. it was a pretty tough hike, but we really enjoyed it. it was definitely worth it in the end! it only took us around 2 hours i think to do the hike.

view from the beginning of our hike

some of monterosso

the beginning... easy part....

stairs! these aren't bad ones

we hiked 90 degree stairs seriously for over an hour

jordon!

our skinny pathways that dropped off to the water

looking back on monterosso

over an hour later we could see vernazza

resting on these stair steps that came out of the stone walls

vernazza

boats in vernazza

the biggest/whitest seagull i've ever seen

and im from sarasota, fl....

i love this door

we grabbed a slice of pizza and coke in vernazza for lunch after our hike. we looked at the map and the hike to corniglia looked like it was much harder than the one we had just done, so we decided to take the train. we both kind of wish we had done the hike, but we were pretty tired at this point.

we hopped on the train and headed for corniglia. this was a really small town that really didn't have anything in it. but we got off of the train and hiked to the top where the town is. we looked around for a little bit, didn't see much, so we decided to head on to manarola. we hiked this one and it was around an hour hike. it wasn't steep or anything either, pretty flat, which was nice.

hearts!

jordon on the bridge between corniglia and manarola

our path

rocks and water!

manarola

manarola is really pretty with boats lining the streets

plus they looked like they had a lot of good restaurants

after we browsed through manarola we decided to walk the last part back to riomaggiore, which is only like 20 minutes. we start walking toward the pathway, when a woman stops us asking for our tickets. what? we have to have tickets to walk back to riomaggiore? we turned around and went in to the ticket office where we discovered that it's 5 euro each to walk this road (mind you it's only like 1,40 euro to ride the train....). we decided we'd pay it since we wanted to walk. it costs so much because you walk along via'del amore, the street of lovers. it's a pretty famous road, and really interesting.

via'del amore

all of the locks, like in florence, symbolizing couples' love

via'del amore

the tunnel to riomaggiore is really cool

it is all mosaics and really good ones!

riomaggiore

riomaggiore

so the next day we headed back to rome. it was a really good spring break and we saw a lot of different things. we both had a lot of fun. i wouldn't mind going back to cinque terre in the summer time and lay on the beach!