Photo credit www.washingtonpost.com

After first learning about the India school lunch poisoning that killed 23 children between the ages of 5-12, I thought please don't let this be true.

India has one of the largest free school lunch programs in the world feeding nearly 120 million children. State governments decide on menus and timings of the meals which cannot cost more than .03 cents to prepare.

Most cooks are paid no more than 40 rupees a day (.68 cents) and cannot make more than 1000 rupees a month or $17.

However, in an area where nearly HALF of all children suffer from malnutrition, the free midday meal remains one of the biggest incentives to sending children to school.

Even in light of this tragedy, the midday meal must remain.

The incident may have been an intentional act of malice perpetuated by Meena Kumari, the principal at the school. She purchased cooking oil containing large quantities of a very potent pesticide from a company operated by her husband.

Even after the cook questioned the apparence of the oil, Kumari insisted it be used. Even after the children complained that the food tasted bad, Kumari insisted that they eat.

Once the children began to vomit and loose consciousness, Kumari fled. After nine days on the run, she was arrested late last week.

She is claiming that she has been set up.

My heart breaks for the families of the children lost and for the two cooks. One tried to calm the children and reassure them that all was fine by eating the meal with them becoming violently ill as well. The other cook lost two of her three children.

She is quoted as saying "I am so horrified that I wouldn't grieve more if my only surviving child died." She also said she would never return to the school.

While much corruption remains, the good that the India midday meal provides does so much more. It is my sincere hope that the numerous branches of government can learn from this tragedy and begin to make changes to a highly mismanaged and corrupt system.

No ones says it better or with more conviction than Shweta Sharma, who is an Assistant Teacher at the Government Middle School in Deoghar City, Jharkhand.

Her entire piece can be found HERE and I urge you to read it.

Dear Anonymous

Why do you come to my blog just to bitch about it? I delete all your stupid comments. I honestly don't care what you think but let's clear a few things up.

Sarcasm is hard to convey in print so when I talk about things like the lifeguard cleaning the pool, I'm not "bitching about everything" and I certainly "wouldn't prefer the lifeguard asleep in her chair." Most of my regular readers grasp this concept.

I find it quite humerous that you read my blog only to mock it. I'm just going to throw this out there because maybe you don't know. You CAN stop coming here.

In fact, I wouldn't mind at all.

Have you nothing else to do but stop by blogs and complain about them? Perhaps you should consider employment. Most people don't consider reading blogs and watching YouTube videos employment. I realize coming up with all those witty comments feels like work but alas it truly isn't.

You are one of those people who post negative comments on Facebook pages you like. Why do you like Dove Soap if you just wanna tell people it smells like shit? I don't think you understand what "like" means.

Oddly enough, I'm sort of looking forward to your response to this. As I'm sure it's gonna be thought provoking and filled with misspellings.

Just to make it more entertaining, I think I'll read my blog and all the comments after searching for it on gizoogle which converts everything to gangsta.

At the very least, it will finally make whatever you have to say somewhat humerous cause nothing says "suck it" quite like gangsta.

Sincerely,

Kisa

Seems I haven't found all the time I was thinking I lost by working full time by having the summer off.

If anything, I seemed to have lost even more of it.

I was convinced that we would have thought provoking discussions on this roller coaster accident or that we might touch on the school lunch incident in India that left 22 children dead and a headmistress fleeing. I even thought we might talk about the ridiculous reporting on those Asiana pilot names .

I guess it's never to late to blog about it. Of course, every other blogger is going to be talking about the royal baby.

Here's hoping they don't go with Prince Albert. We can't have royalty named after a genital piercing.

Is it possible that my summer break is nearly half over?

Really?

Here's what we've squeezed in so far.

Little G went to camp. The camp sign was VERY happy to see me. Seriously? Am I the only one who noticed that?

Oldest went to Hershey Park with the band, Middle G. fell in love with One Direction at a concert that tested my parking lot patience to its limit. It took us over three hours to get home. However, I think the positive memories we made outweighed the negative.

We hit the road as a family and stopped in West Virginia to visit my mom. She's all settled in and feeling at home. The kids had fun creek stomping and making s'mores.

We've been to the pool, although the weather hasn't been very cooperative. We've hung out with friends. We've said goodbye to friends. We played our last baseball game.

We played mini golf with grandparents. We've had ice cream and played in the slip and slide. We've crafted. We've scrapbooked. We've attempted some Pinterest crafts.

We've been to gymnastics class and soccer camp. We've had a few campfires and we've slept in the backyard.

We've eaten Popsicles. We've posed for countless photos. Sometimes pretending we like each other.

We fired BB guns. We took a few hikes. We swam on top of a freaking mountain. One of the most beautiful state park pools I've ever been too.

In hind sight, we've made quite a few memories.

Middle G. holding the rooster we brought home from West Virginia for her BFF.

It was payment for taking care of Inky the Cat.

Can you see it?