Tired Baby Does Shavasana

Somebody was snoozing during capacity building…

Who doesn’t like cute baby pictures? This is one from today’s capacity building with farmers from rural communities of El Salvador. The farmers are community leaders who are participating in a Trócaire livelihoods project, made possible thanks to the Big Lottery Fund. The goals of the project are to improve access to water in El Salvador’s most marginalized communities, enable farmers to diversify crops to heighten their families’ food security, promote leadership development, and bring about institutional change at the municipal and State levels through advocacy.

One of the women farmers who participated in today’s training arrived with her daughter. When the baby started getting restless, Super Mom set her down on a Disney mattress, which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Judging by the rapid onset of slumber, I’d say it did the trick.

Looking at the baby, I couldn’t help but think what kind of world she’ll be growing up in. How will she fare with the realities of climate change and water contamination that threaten El Salvador, which is one of the top five countries in the world to be most negatively impacted by climate change? Will she be a farmer, like her mom? Will she want to go to school? If so, will she have the means to do so? Will resources find their way to her in a starkly unequal society? Will she use them on shoes, bags, and phones, or will she invest in something that has more value? How will she define value?

The answers to these questions are impossible to know. For now, she sleeps, perfectly oblivious to the fact that she is the cutest baby on the planet.

Tired baby performs shavasana