Saving Face

Life Matters News Digest No.071 March 2024

I first wrote about Laxmi Saa from India in a blog post on human cruelty in 2016. At 15 years old she was disfigured in an acid attack because she rejected an offer of marriage. Her attacker got just 3 years in jail.

Fortunately, an Indian fashion company, Viva N Diva, stepped forward and employed her as a model, empowering Laxmi to speak out about her suffering and allowing her to let herself be seen. She has since campaigned about the lax rules over the sale of acid in India.

It is very hard, if not impossible, to imagine what a beautiful young girl would feel when she is robbed of her looks in this appalling way. A life sentence for her, just 3 years incarceration for her attacker.

Somehow, Laxmi and many people like her, use their disfigurement to build a new life. Somehow, they survive the ups and downs of depression, loneliness and despair and build a new life based on hope. I don't know how they do that.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the world's population, without Laxmi's disadvantages, obsesses about their looks and appearance. It makes me laugh when I see young girls (usually but not always) posing against a building or landscape, feet carefully positioned, legs bent, chin up and body carefully curved in professional model style.

"Instagram?" I say and they nod in confirmation. Social media has a lot to answer for.

It also puzzles me when I see good-looking women covering their faces with layers of make-up. From my perspective it makes them look so much less attractive, though, by contrast, occasionally some subtler touches can enhance an already pretty face or a plain one.

I suppose people, men and women, have worried about their looks since time immemorial, based perhaps on anxiety over blending in, being accepted by others, popularity and attracting a mate. In addition, there have always been individuals or companies to exploit vanity and offer magic potions, creams or cosmetics to "change your life." It can be an endless and expensive search.

Some men wear make-up but in the circles I move in they are rare. Most men at any age fuss about their hair - how it looks and later, how much they have left!

I occasionally look in the mirror and think, "My God, Peter, you are looking old and battered!" Ageing is far more difficult for women. Illness apart, men can get away with gradually looking more "rugged." Women, often brought up on their looks and constantly made aware of how it influences the approval and reactions of other women and men, have a much harder time with ageing.

Perhaps the answer is to learn a little from Laxmi and others like her, who have had the ability to influence their looks taken from them. Perhaps too we all need to learn, including me, to judge others more often not by their looks but solely by their personality, their abilities and the contributions they make to society.

Meet retired US army sergeant, Richard (Rick) Yarosh. Rick was catastrophically burnt in an explosion in Iraq, which he describes in the video below. Rick has struggled with being called a "monster" and he sees the reactions of others, who stare too long, daily. Children especially, are afraid of him.

He talks about one little girl who was encouraged to say, "Hello," to him by her father but was terrified. Rick took the initiative and gently said to her, "Hello. How are you doing?" The girl returned to her father and said with surprise in her voice, "He's really nice!"

Children adapt quickly when they get passed the unknown or the unusual. You can imagine how some adults react.

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Rick is now a motivational speaker and has talked to more than 1 million students in the USA bringing his message of H.O.P.E - "Hold On, Possibilities Exist." How to get through the darkness, however extreme, how to learn to love yourself, however you may look or feel, and how to become a positive activator making your contribution to the world whatever the obstacles.

Might be interesting to consider your reactions when you first saw the photographs of Laxmi and Rick on this page.

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Stringing Things Out

Konstantin Hlanta was originally a dentist but turned to art in 2019. Self-taught, he "draws" with string instead of pencils, making colourful and detailed pieces of art by wrapping thread around nails.

From a distance, Konstantin's paintings look like conventional paintings. It is only when you stand nearer that you see the nails and the numerous threads that have gone into making it. Konstantin says it is like painting with pastel or acrylic but adding colours to create shades and shadows using different coloured threads.

​You can see more of Konstantin's work, HERE:​

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Waddling on a Prosthetic

When talking about disabilities, it is not just humans that now benefit from prosthetics. These days, especially since the invention of the 3D printer, animals can adapt to them too. In the past cats, dogs and even an elephant have been fitted with prosthetics.

The elephant was called Mosha and she lost her right front leg to a land mine in the north of Thailand on the troubled border with Myanmar. Two years later she met the surgeon Therdchai Jivacate who set about creating an artificial leg. Because of her rapidly growing size and weight, Mosha got through 3 artificial legs in her first year.

Therdchai has made over 20,000 prosthetics for humans, but also cats, dogs and birds, and provides many of them for free through his Protheses Foundation. He tries to construct prosthetic legs using local materials, though Mosha's legs, because of the weight involved, proved something of a challenge.

In 2016 Mosha was ten years old, around 4,400 lbs in weight and on her ninth leg!

​You can read the full story of Mosha, HERE:​

Which brings me to Waddles the Duck! Waddles the Mallard duck was born with a deformed leg and would have had difficulty surviving. His adoptive owner, Ben Weinman, contacted a Pet Prostheticist at Bionic Pets, called Derrick Campana and Derrick made Waddles a new plastic leg and foot using his 3D printer.

To begin with, Waddles is not quite sure what to make of it but with a little encouragement he is soon waddling about on his new limb.

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Don't know why, but there is something about seeing people/ elephants/ducks overcoming obstacles and extreme challenges that gets me quite emotional! Must be my age!

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WORDPLAY

Some years ago, Swedish designer, Daniel Carlmatz, challenged himself to create a logo every day for a year. Using minimalist compositions he took ordinary words and with simple techniques added some additions that turned them into visually creative logos.

"Panda, which was in Daniel's head from day 1, took him until day 251 to get "right."

The next two are even more visual:

Some others are clever:

If you have a quiet moment try coming up with a few of your own. Here's my quick and rather feeble attempt:

I think I need to work on that! My favourite from Daniel (and also my favourite food) is this one:

And finally, when he finished on day 365:

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"Freedom" Village

Tucked away in the "Demilitarised Zone (DMZ - actually the most militarised zone in the world) between North and South Korea, are two villages, Freedom Village on the south side and Peace Village on the north side.

The zone was built in 1953 to keep the two armies apart at the end of the Korean War. Hundreds of villages were cleared, mines and miles of barbed wire filled the landscape and thousands of rounds of artillery still face each other across the border line.

The two remaining villages were meant to signify the hope that the two countries would one day be reunified but 70 years on that has not happened.

The "Peace" Village in North Korea is thought to be empty but the "Freedom" Village (known as Taesung in South Korea) still has 138 inhabitants, guarded day and night by the US-led United Nations Command. The Command includes soldiers from 12 countries and is charged with making sure the armistice between the two countries holds.

Things flared last November when Kim Jong Un called South Korea his No.1 enemy and said a peaceful reunion between the two states was impossible.

So the villagers in Freedom Village live with no restaurants, no medical facilities, no shop - but have a security guard of 800 soldiers. The villagers are mainly farmers but have armed guards when they work their fields in case of North Korean incursions.

At night, the population need permission to be outside their homes after 7.00 pm and are not allowed out at all after midnight. Why do they stay you might ask?

Probably because the South Korean government wants them to and offers perks like no taxes, no rent, no military service, an abundance of farmland and the government buys any crops they can't sell. Three buses a day allow them to regularly escape to the outside world. The young frequently do not return after going to university and as a consequence the population gradually ages.

One of the residents jokes that the only downside is that they can't get deliveries of fried chicken!

​You can read the full story from the BBC, HERE:​

Credits: My thanks to Karen for the good material I was able to expand on. Photo Credits: Laxmi Saa/Viva N Diva, Rick Yarosh/ Tunnels to Towers Foundation, Konstantin Hlanta/My Modern Met, Friends of the Asian Elephant Association/My Modern Met, Daniel Carlmatz/My Modern Met, Jean Mackenzie/BBC, DMZ Peace Map/Google/BBC.

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END PIECE

The ongoing struggle in Gaza still commands my attention - as it should for everyone, although the news cycle moves on and the desperate situation is forgotten. A bridge collapses in America and draws the world's attention away.

A famine in northern Gaza seems imminent and children are starting to die of malnutrition while food trucks are still held up at Israeli checkpoints.

The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to allow the unimpeded delivery of aid into Gaza and the US, for the 1st time, was moved to abstain from a call by the UN Security Council for a Gaza ceasefire, allowing the vote to pass. Israel is likely to ignore both orders.

While understanding why Israel wants to eliminate Hamas, its unvoiced decision to block food supplies and other humanitarian aid to the innocent victims in Gaza, feels more and more like genocide; solving the Palestinian problem by wiping them from the land of Israel.

Israeli right-wingers are already agitating to claim beachfront locations along the Gaza Strip and to build new settlements. Just as in the West Bank, despite international legal condemnation, the encroachment by Israeli settlers will be relentless.

How the world will solve this situation, I have no idea. The first step though must be to get rid of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Let's hope that the majority in Israel somehow, at some point, achieve that.

In the meantime, we are going to have to stand by and watch the Israel Army's destruction of Rafah city in southern Gaza. As thousands more innocent victims, women and children, die in the inferno, we will continue to feel helpless. Not a good place to be.

However, stay strong, protest where you can, but most importantly take good care of yourself - and be kind caring, generous and patient with those less fortunate than we are.

All good wishes,