This is my first entry and its about bugs. A little traumatising having to google for an enlarged version of this crazy looking bug which looks like a dwarf cockroach. So if you need a detailed report on its origin and family tree, please do a wiki search yourself.
My issue with this bug, is not on its origination and development, but rather, how we treat the rice that we find infested with such bugs.
I work in a place where we collect packs of rice from generous donors and redistribute them to low income families as food rations. As with all the other resources, there will be occasional bottlenecks and the likes, so the rice are left on the racks for quite some time. Then when you need a pack and revisit the racks, you see creepy crawlies in the packs.
Do you still give them out to the needy?
This is a question in humanity's full glory, excluding how giving out weevils infested rice would affect the image of the agency etc. I mean it in a personal manner, would you give them out to people who needs to eat?
As an amateur worker thinking that i can save the world with my bare hands, i asked my colleague if i could discard the pack of rice because how it is fit for consumption? I mean, seriously.
She said, "If we bring this pack of rice to Africa, the people will still fight for it you know."
Then i thought, so beggars cant be choosers?
Apparently, there will be opponents and proponents when it comes to taking sides. A lot of times, from a personal stand, i do subscribe to the idea of beggars cant be choosers. But obviously, i would have a lower limit that i could tolerate before i even propose it to the "beggars".
We always hear about having to put ourselves in others' shoes and see things from their perspectives, but sometimes, have you thought about whatever you phantom to be their perspectives might not actually be what they really are thinking about?
Like for the rice, i would not offer it to the needy because hey, i would never want to receive that pack of rice myself. So why give it to the others? But from my colleague's point of view, some of the rice are still undamaged so they could still be consumed. These are all from the service providers' perspectives, what about the receivers'?
What are we basing our assumptions (that they would/ would not accept our offers) on, when we decide what to give out and what to discard?
What would you do?
Does "beggars cant be choosers" hold true?
Welcome to the blogosphere!
ReplyDeleteMay I know where this is coming from?
This is confusing.. standing in view of the service providers, the problem lies in the "occasional bottlenecks" as you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteWhile being in a position like yours, I would have allowed the receivers to know about the bugs and that itself could "allow beggars to choose". Afterall we're all part of this "system".
Welcome to the blogosphere. :)
Leslie/ hmm, im from Singapore!
ReplyDeleteAnon/ yeah, i agree that maybe we could inform them about the bugs and ask if they would still want to receive/ accept the rice. maybe this simple act could restore some of their sense of locus of control (:
oh, i meant it in a way that the breeding of bugs were sometimes brought about by the bottlenecks.
in a way, we could only offer what the generous donors sponsor or what we could procure, so i think there is still some restriction about the range of things that they could choose from.