The failure of MARSH in adulthood

Ever play MASH or MARSH when you were little? For those who didn't, it's a fortune-telling game; you write M A S H (or M A R S H) across the top of a big square, and on the other sides of the square you write the names of people you might marry,* various numbers of children you might have (0, 1, 2, 3, 10!) and various professions you might end up in. Then you do your best to randomly generate a number (by drawing a spiral in the square until a friend tells you to stop, then counting how many circles you've made). Say your number is four; you then count around the edge of the square, crossing off every fourth entry. You don't count any entry you've crossed off, and once you're down to one option on any one side you circle it and don't count that either. You do this until only one option is left per side, and then you know your future!

The letter remaining in MASH or MARSH tells you whether you'll live in a Mansion, Apartment, Ranch, Shack or House.

I tried to play this in a long and very boring meeting on Friday, and realized just how hard it is to play when you already know who you've married and how many kids you're having. I ended up playing with MARSH (home in 10 years), retirement age, profession in 10 years, and where I would go for lunch that day.

* This was about 25 years before gay marriage, and about 7 years before I even heard of gay people, so they were always boys.

Walkover homework and other adventures

I've just been putting in my time this week, at the gym and the yoga studio. Ah, dear little body and your molasses-like ways. Walkover homework is going okay though; my drop-backs are getting less fearful, and I managed to stand up from a backbend today (one arm leaving the ground at a time, alas; and when I tried to at least do the same on the other side I fell down). I've also suddenly gained the ability to do half hero pose in yoga class, mostly because I figured out it's about internal hip rotation rather than asking one's knee to do impossible things. Er, at least I think it is. Though in that case I'm not sure why it's considered good alignment for the top of the foot to be on the ground... why not the side of the foot?

Oh, and: I did a set of 10 pullups today for the first time in ages. At first I thought this was because of the "be a thinner flexagon" project -- a lighter object is just easier to lift -- but according to the scale I was only 1 pound lighter today than when I felt super-pudgy. I give up. My back muscles clearly follow their own rules. It's encouraging that they seem to like me again, though.

Poverty-free: do you qualify?

How did we define "poverty-free"? After interviewing many borrowers about what a poverty-free life meant to them, we developed a set of ten indicators that our staff and outside evaluators could use to measure whether a family in rural Bangladesh lived a poverty-free life. These indicators are:

1. having a house with a tin roof;
2. having beds or cots for all members of the family;
3. having access to safe drinking water;
4. having access to a sanitary latrine;
5. having all school-age children attending school;
6. having sufficient warm clothing for winter;
7. having mosquito nets;
8. having a home vegetable garden;
9. having no food shortages, even during the most difficult time of a very difficult year; and
10. having sufficient income-earning opportunity for all adult members of the family.

We will be monitoring these criteria on our own and are inviting local and international researchers to help us track our successes and setbacks as we head toward our goal of a poverty-free Bangladesh.

~Muhammad Yunus in Banker to the Poor, a book about microloans and the Grameen Bank

This is definitely a thought-provoking book, and one that's making me think rather differently about a few issues, though I find it impossible to agree with the author's belief that credit should be considered a "human right". Human rights, to me, are something that can still be given or lived by even if everyone were magically dropped naked in a field somewhere. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, yeah. Credit, only assuming someone has capital to begin with.

Speaking of microloans, my three kiva.org loans were all in July, and they have all been assigned a starting date of August 07. Tomorrow. Yesenia, Ruth and Grace... you're off and running! Good luck to you!