You’ve got the flu or want to avoid getting it:

Here’s what you do – HIV Positive people, especially, need to take extra precautions

When U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said that people should avoid subways and other confined spaces because of the swine flu sweeping the nation, the country recorded its first swine flu death – a toddler in Houston, TX – which led to the decision by state and federal health officials to ratchet up their alert level, and which prompted the Word Health Organization (WHO) to up their grade to Phase 5, a status just below declaring a full pandemic, has come as a jolt to everyone. This drastic and seemingly draconian action by national and internationally health related agencies should come as no surprise, since many of them were severely criticized for their lack of preparedness and response to two major flu outbreaks in recent memory, Sars and the Avian Flu, both which emphasized the global nature of the spread of any infection and threatened to overwhelm countries’ health infrastructure, revealing how unprepared many were.

But while there are numerous suggestions on what to do, to protect against contracting or passing the virus on, many of those tips in the local media have not included enough detail for adequate protection.

A person could be infected and spread the flu up to a full day before he or she feels symptoms and up to seven days after they are sick.

Many HIV positive people, especially, need to take extra precautions, as someone once said, the general perception is that most people are afraid of contracting HIV from an HIV-positive person, but really, it is the HIV positive person, who with a compromised immune system, is most vulnerable and at risk from the general population. Consequently, a HIV-positive person needs to observe the rules for the general population and take additional precautions, such as staying away from crowded or heavily populated areas, like night clubs, sex clubs, parties, public transport conveyances, and should contact their doctor to enquire as to the best medication. Those with the HIV virus should be aware of the signs of an illness coming on, the beginning scratchiness or dryness in the throat, the feeling of lethargy or extreme tiredness, or headaches. HIV positive people should make it their duty to pay attention to their bodies, as with a compromised immune system, assumption should not be entertained and nothing taken for granted.

According to William Shay, M.D., a Chelsea-based general internist who specializes in HIV treatment, an HIV-positive person who has a fever of 101-degrees or higher and has a cough with any other symptoms, should see their doctor.

So, while waiting for a vaccine, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) optimistically suggest could take six months to be produced and some reports state that even if there is a vaccine there won’t be enough for everyone, and it would be ineffective, because this flu strain is likely to have mutated or people would develop a resistance to it.  These five critical tips, widely agreed upon by the WHO, the CDC, and other health experts, are what a person could do to avoid getting sick and, importantly, avoid infecting others.

• Washing hands:
  The best thing anyone could do right now to avoid swine flu, experts say, is to wash their hands. It sounds like a stupidly simple response to an overwhelming situation, but almost compulsive hand-washing helps prevent the spread of this respiratory infection. It’s the droplets from coughing and sneezing, which coat surfaces and which people touch that spread the infection. The virus gets on hands, and then everything touched is infected.

  While washing the hands seems simple, how it is done is important:

• Use warm or hot water if you can;
• Lather up with soap and rub not just your fingers and palms but also under the fingernails, around the wrists and between the fingers for as long as it takes to sing the “Happy Birthday” song twice; and
• Rinse well.

While it is important to wash hands thoroughly with soap and water before eating and after using the bathroom, for whatever the bodily function, it is also important after using a tissue or covering the mouth as with a sneeze or a cough, sick or not, or as with seasonal allergies, which could present similar symptoms to the flu.

A person should think of how often he or she would wash their hands if they worked in a hospital’s emergency or operating room; hands should be washed that often and that thoroughly.

2. Covering the mouth when coughing or sneezing.

“The way you spread influenza is with droplets that come out of your mouth or nose,” said Dr. George T. DiFerdinando Jr., a physician, epidemiologist and professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-School of Public Health. He recommends the classic shoulder or crook-of-the elbow sneeze.

“It’s a whole lot better for those [droplets] to be on blouse or sleeve than spraying onto surfaces or other people,” he said, after which, wash the hands.

While wearing surgical face masks are an option for containing the droplets, they don’t keep a person’s hands clean and there is no consensus in the healthcare community on whether or not face masks are advisable for everyday use.

“If the swine flu virus is spreading throughout the community, it would not surprise me if people use face masks to good effect,” DiFerdinando said.

1. Staying home.

Someone who is sick should stay home, DiFerdinando said. Try to muster the energy to wash the hands after every tissue use so as not to avoid re-infecting everything touched afterward. This helps to reduce the presence of the virus in the immediate environment, with recovery, and protects household and loved ones.

1. Not touching the face.

While very few people succeed at restraint and control, more people are urged to try to keep their hands away from their face and areas where there are mucous membranes, such as around or close to the eyes, inside the nostrils and mouth, which are direct routes to the bloodstream and which allows the virus to bypass the protective barrier of the skin.

“That’s just human nature,” DiFerdinando said. “It’s not something to moan about. In this circumstance you’ve got a very strong motivator to keep your hands clean. If you keep washing your hands, you decrease the dose [of flu virus] that you get when you put your hands in your mouth.”

5. Avoid sick people

It’s a good idea to avoid close contact with other people who are sick, DiFerdinando said, adding: “We won’t even see air kisses.” The flu virus tends not to float in the air. Instead, once dispersed, the liquid droplets tend to settle on objects that doctors call fomites – things that people touch that can pick up a virus. Examples include coins, hand rails, door knobs, common household and office objects. Smooth objects transmit microbes more than rough or porous ones. So, for instance, coins would allow one to pick up more virus than paper money.

Not surprising to Dr. James Koopman, professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, is the number of cases concentrated in one geographic area.

“There is a lot of direct contact and touching of common things when children are in school,” Koopman said. “They are in general more susceptible to these things.”

Koopman and his colleagues are trying to pin down the relative importance of different routes of transmission, whether by the air or by hand touching, fomite.

“Our work is indicating there can be big differences between something like airborne virus – you may take a small amount in with every breath, but when you get a big goober of someone’s cough on your finger and it touches your mucosal membrane – your eye, nose, mouth or somewhere where it can gain access – that could be a much higher dose,” Koopman said.

It takes time for a new virus – and the swine flu outbreak is based on a new strain of an H1N1 virus – to adapt to a human’s immune system and survive there long enough to find another organism to infect, Koopman said.

At first, the immune system can handle small doses of virus, such as with airborne transmission, he said. In that case, “maybe the hand-fomite touching spread would be more important than the airborne,” he said.

Maybe later, the virus evolves to survive and transmit successfully in smaller doses, or via different routes, he said.

“I personally think this virus has been circulating a bit longer than is recognized at this time,” Koopman said.

The CDC photograph, below, captured a sneeze in progress, revealing the plume of salivary droplets as they are expelled in a large cone-shaped array from this man’s open mouth. The flu virus can spread in this manner and survive long enough on a doorknob or countertop to infect another person. It dramatically illustrates the reason you should cover your mouth when sneezing or coughing to protect others from germ exposure, health officials say. It’s also why you need to wash your hands a lot, on the assumptions others don’t always cover their sneezes.

Photo of man's sneeze - droplet plume

Bank stoops low: sneaky stealing

Okay, let me explain, because while some may agree with the headline above, others may see it as inflammatory. So, for those who disagree, I leave you to arrive at your own conclusion.

On Friday, Mar 6, I received a check drawn on an out of state bank account for $300. With only $1.35 in my Chase Manhattan Bank account and knowing that my Time Warner Cable would be suspended for non-payment, I was eager for the check to clear. After depositing it, I left the teller’s window and looked at the deposit receipt, which did not indicate when the entire amount would be available. I was later informed that, even though tellers are supposed to notify customers and have it printed on the receipt when their funds would be completely available, if the deposit is $300 or more, the customers are also, according to Chase, expected to ask when the funds would be available.

The next day, in keeping with a banking regulation was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives back in 2005, $100 was available. From conversations I’ve had with “back office” Chase employees, including those who have worked at the institution for many years, when a customer deposits a check, usually, the entire amount, because of our electronic age, is available to the bank but held by them and turned over – that is, sold, loaned and “interest-ed,” earned interest for the bank. Banks claim holds and other dubious circumstances to delay making the funds available to customer who are told that their funds would not be available, especially for an out of state check, for four to five business days. For an instate check, funds could be available in two to three business days. Business days do not include Saturday, Sunday or holidays; these are working days, Monday to Friday.

Short on food, I went out the next day $100 empowered and spent $48. Then just as I expected, Time Warner suspended my service. That night, I called in a check payment for $106 to the cable company and my service was restored. Having done this type of payment before, I had an idea or a rough guess of how long the Time Warner check payment would take to clear and I figured that by that time, the out of state check, the $200 balance would also clear and keep me solvent. That didn’t happen and is still in dispute as to when – it came down to a time determination- did the balance clear and the cable check hit my account. Nonetheless, I noticed that Chase hit me with a $25 insufficient funds fee, also called an NSF fee. Still thinking I had funds in my bank account, I treated myself to a $6 McDonald’s breakfast.

That is when it all went down hill. My account was overdrawn and I was in the red for 23 cents. Hurrying to the Chase branch at the corner of Broadway and 165^th Street, I spoke with the branch manager, asking her about the $25 fee. Not wanting to have a negative balance, I scrounged up $3 for a deposit, and as I was standing in the line waiting to be restored to good standing, I asked the manager about being charged another $25 because my account was over by .23 cents. She assured me that when the charge hit, she would remove it, because she had the authority to remove NSF fee charges on negative balances less than $3. But then, accepting that I miscalculated, an automatic payment of $19.99 to Verizon also hit my account, which forced my account into a further negative balance of $17. The next day, I deposited $504 and saw my balance reduced to $486, and the next day I deposited another check for $880. This time, when I made the two latter deposits I enquired when they would be available and was told the next day. Confident in my new found wealth, I went shopping for necessities. But on Thursday, when I looked at my statement online, I noticed that there was a $64 NSF fee charged to my account. I hastened once again to the bank and enquired from the manager. She explained that the bank’s policy was that more than an initial NSF charge, $25, was charged at $32, and the $64 charge consisted of $32 for the .23cents and for the negative $17. I proceeded to remind her of the discussion and the assurance she made the previous Friday. After much wrangling and derogatory comments and saying she would have to take the loss at her branch because she made the promise to refund the NSF fee, she reluctantly reversed the charge.

But, what struck me was that without knowing, Chase had not only charged me $32 for a negative .23cents, but that the charge had been automatically increased from $25. The manager, referring me to a thick booklet containing Chase’s policies and procedures in 8-point print, stated that any amounts that go into a negative balance, regardless of how much, even if one cent is charged $25 or $32. When I pointed out that people designed the system which automatically charged customer, she found it difficult to accept that concept, which enabled Chase, under the guise of legality, to gouge its customers. Now, I wonder how many customers, who do not carefully monitor their bank balances or statements, does Chase fleece in such a flagrant manner. There are those who say that what Chase is doing is the fundamental of capitalism, that it is, a bank is in the business of making money. But, isn’t that same philosophy that has caused the financial sector to be in so low, corporate greed?

Reflections: Mr. President Obama

Could this be true? America has a Black president

There is an emotional catch in my throat as I look and listen to all the commentaries and analyses, historical comparisons to Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, who was spot on when he said the U.S. would have an African-American president in 40 years; and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who suggested a Black president in about 25 years, and contemporary parallels: the economic crises with Bank of America needing money to help them stay afloat; the three automotive industry giants needing money to keep more than half a million employees and subsidiary concerns, two of them forecasting being unable to stay in business come March; the second half of the promised $750 billion appropriated as a financial bailout of the finance sector: people are asking where has the first half gone, has it evaporated?There is no evidence financial institutions have resumed inter-bank lending, that businesses have been getting the advance credit they need to operate and produce, and an average 500,000 homes per month are going into foreclosure, there has been no mortgage renegotiation.

In recent days, there has been no mention of the issue of immigration. It was touching indeed to see his paternal grandmother who traveled from Kenya sharing the dais. Obama himself knew that without the strong support of the Hispanic community, who had grown to despise the Bush administration for the draconian immigration policies and renditions, the Berlin-like wall along the border between Mexico and the U.S.; that he would not have won.

Looking at television close up shots of the faces of people who had gathered on the National Mall, many men and women whose eyes welled with tears, many women their mascara running – haven’t they heard of waterproof mascara, or for many for whom the tears brim over their eye lids, like the waters of Lake Pontchartrain cresting the banks of the levees and inundating the basin below – sliding down their cheeks? Tears which hold not just the salt from their bodies, but the expectations commingled with longing, for all those who are Black in America, who struggled and endured ignominies and humiliations of every kind, yet did not live to see this day, when a Black man is president. The tears flow as many think of those Blacks who still endure slave like conditions, whose lives are inextricably bound to their white counterparts, and who dare not murmur a word or breathe a sigh of discontent or disagreement for fear of a disengagement or termination, which would reduce them to penury.

In a commentary on the eve of the Inauguration on BBC America’s Notes to Obama, national poet Maya Angelou said that she was not presenting a poem, she was presenting ruminations or reflections of what an Obama presidency means to and for her. She said that while the nation needs him, it is he who needs us more.

“We need him, the race needs him, the banks need him, and the economy needs him. He brought to us something we cannot live without, hope. He offers us the chance to have a great president, with whom we can identify, not as a Black president, but a president who would speak for the voiceless, for the poor black, poor white and for the disadvantaged Hispanic person.

I believe he needs us more than we need him. I believe that each of us has to do something more. I believe that we Americans deserve the most we can get. I will work alongside being of use and I will look for you working alongside, being of use,” she said.

During the Inauguration, when Obama took the oat of office, was there a hint of petty vindictiveness and partisanship, even subtle racism? Could it be that because Obama opposed John Roberts’ confirmation as Chief Justice, that Roberts felt to get back at Obama, to fumbled the words of the oat of office while the world looked on, as if to remind the President that he is still subject to the White establishment? Roberts’ subsequent apologies to the President, even re-administering the oat of office, have only highlighted the shadow of incompetence of the Bush administration, but which with tiny wisps and tendrils are trying to reach out to contaminate the new administration. What a mark on an historic and memorable day. Did anyone see the television close up of Obama’s expression during the fumbling? No doubt if it hadn’t been re-administered, constitutional lawyers would have had a field day on the legitimacy of the President.

As he promised, Obama has issued executive orders closing Guantanamo Bay within a year, which while keeping a campaign promise to the American people and assuaging the Islamic world, opens up other problems: reports suggest that some of the detainees would be brought at imprisoned at Levanworth prisons, which is on U.S. soil and places the detainees under the dictates of the Constitution: is there justification to holding them, how are the rules of evidence applied and exercised, what proof is there of involvement or collusion, except for some of the 250 detainees, who were held on hearsay or suspicion, and what about the Patriot’s Act? He has also ordered troops home within 16 months, and outlawed torture.

Reflections: Obama, a President

Interregnum: the between time

Obama, should remember only too well the Roman observation: how fickle the populace of Rome – who briefly rejoiced in the victories of Pompeii and before the last sound of praise could be heard in his honor, turned against and reviled him. If he cannot deliver on the promises, like every politician before him, he has made, he would be hounded out of office in infamy. He is a lawyer and like all of his profession, he has over the last several weeks, since the elections, when the campaigning was over and he became starkly aware that his rhetoric had now to become practical, began to cover himself with a disclaimer. Not wanting to seem as though he has stepped away from his promises of change, he has begun to temper the expectations he created in the people of what HE would do. In the later days of the interregnum, he has changed his tune, repeatedly he has cautioned that in the first 100 days of his administration, he may not be able to meet all the expectations people have of him, not that he has created in a people thirsty and desperate for a new American direction, and more importantly, being able to fulfill the promises he made to win; admitting to the possibility of making mistakes and missteps. His electoral victory was a demonstration of who could fool all of the people better; everyone saw through Sen. John McCain’s weak political strategies and rejected his posturing as a continuation of a Republican party steeped in the corrupt machinery born and developed since the Regan presidential era.

Many Black leaders, after the euphoria of the electoral victory and the prospect of a Black president in the White House had worn off, have admitted that he cannot achieve and accomplish all he promised. They recognized that they were fooled, but preferred to abandon their righteous anger of being deceived by one of their own, to celebrating the accomplishment of one of their kind; as opposed to the anger if John McCain would have won. Can anyone imagine what would have been the national reaction if McCain had won, the abject apathy of many Black people – many of whom would have said, “see I could’ve told you the White man would never allow a Black man to get higher,” “Did that Black man, Obama, think he is better than the Whites,” or the disgust and increased disrespect of the wider international community, who laughed at and mocked Americans for reelecting George Bush for a second term, what would they say should McCain have won the elections?

With the vapors of his electoral victory’s honeymoon quickly dissipating under the heat and starkness of the light of people looking for satisfaction, Obama has acknowledged that closing Guantanamo Bay may not be as immediate as he first thought, it would take the better part of the year. Why, this new administration has to find a way to either bring the inmates to a fair trial – grounds which so far are dubious – or to export them to other countries, many of whom the outgoing administration was looking for help, and as recent reports revealed, many stalled on committing to the Bush administration, but have now agreed to accept prisoners; he won’t be able to bring the troops home from Iraq as soon as he had originally planned, because now the Iraqi government has locked the Americans in a contract binding their presence up into 2011, yet some battalions may be withdrawn; there is doubt in Congress, where once he felt he was confident in bipartisan support, about passing his proposed $850 billion economic stimulus package, which has raised fears of at least a $2 trillion budget deficit, which would be visited on the next two generations; but held true to his word he would make torture illegal for the armed services.

Reflections: Obama – A President

Election: hope and change mantra

As the celebrations from the night, when it was announced that Sen. Barack Obama, by majority of the electoral college and later confirmed by pronouncement by the combined houses of the legislature, had won the elections and was named President-elect, had given way to the stark reality of daylight, in Washington Heights trees lining the streets were festooned with toilet paper hanging from branches as if it was the morning after a festival, presenting a surreal image as if New Years had arrived early on November 5.

In a country steeped in racism, both subtle and overt, what really does an Obama win actually mean for Americans: Native Americans, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Whites? What did his win against a weakened religious conservative political right mean for immigrants, those from Central and South America, from the Caribbean, from Africa, from Asia, minor and major?

Did the White majority in the country say that by electing a Black man as president that they have moved pass the bigotry for which they are known, that they now recognize that Black people are capable of thinking, of governing, of being responsible and are not lazy, lay-abouts, welfare dependents? Is the White establishment now saying that they are willing to take orders from a Black man, consoling themselves by the fact that the president is half Black and half White, and that they had in fact voted for his White half?

As a friend, Clarence Reynolds, a book editor and an English professor at Brooklyn College in Brooklyn said while watching the results come in from across the country that he felt overwhelmed by the experience that here is a Black man becoming president of the United States.

“I’m excited that this will change the psyche, the way people think, the way they see themselves and the way they are perceived. For Black people, this would give them an opportunity to rethink their attitude and a newness of pride in themselves, to at least pull their pants up,” he said.

Since bursting on the national stage at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, his star has continued its meteoric rise. Large crowds have followed him since he declared, speaking to both whites and Blacks, in a statement that single handedly removed the stigma attached to educated Blacks and challenged the perception that only whites are educated – that a Black child reading is not acting white. Obama’s charisma has drawn crowds, from the time of his announcement that he was putting himself forward as a candidate for the presidency in Springfield, IL, to his acceptance speech in Denver, CO and to his gracious victory speech in Grant Park, Chicago, IL on the night of November 4.

Everyone agrees that not only is the country eager and desperate for a change, but a startling phenomena is the perceptible shift in the American attention span: more than 83 million people watched his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention at the Mile High Stadium in Denver, CO, millions watched on their televisions and an estimated 125,000 people crammed into Grant Park to hear his victory speech, which was not as gloating as one would have expected from a contest that celebrated negativity, divisiveness, and attacks ad hominim; but was magnanimous and conciliatory, saying that those who did not vote or support him should know that change has come to America. And, for Americans known for their sensationalist mentality, Obama has not faded into the background of politics as usual. Rather, on Sunday, November 16 an estimated 24 million viewers looked on as he was interviewed by Steve Croft on the CBS Sunday magazine, 60 Minutes. Surprising too, as Gwen Ifill commented in the Newshour on PBS on the following Monday evening, that contrary to the politics as usual where politicians are known to shift or change their messages in the interregnum, after they are elected and sworn in, that Obama has remained true to his campaign messages and reinforced them in intended executive orders: an uncompromising stance on closing the U.S. military base at Guantanamo in Cuba, forbidding torture as a U.S. military practice so as to restore America’s morality on the global stage, and his withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Puzzling, however, is why he chose not to attend the global leadership summit held in Washington, D.C. over the weekend of November 14 – 16? As usual there would be speculations, but interestingly enough, none of the main news outlets have ventured to comment on his absence except for brief mentions that he would not be attending. Is it that he wanted to ensure that when he contacts those heads of state that his interaction is free of the blight and the dross of the incumbent, soon to be former president? Was the meeting just simply window dressing, since even in the communiqué produced by the 20 heads of state, no decisions were made until when they meet again in April and by which time Obama would be present? By not attending the G-20 summit, did Obama miss out on an opportunity to meet his major global counterparts, or did he prefer not to seen in George Bush’s embarrassing shadow?

According to Neil Ferguson being interviewed by Matt Frei on BBC World News-America on Monday, November 17, alluding to Obama’s absence from the G-20 summit not being particularly helpful, he said that with the global economy in crisis and with a protracted American transition period, the world needs immediate action and intervention, and everyone was looking to Obama to pick up the reigns of leadership. Ferguson said that Bush’s comments at a speech on Wall Street in New York on Friday, November 14, where he spoke of support for a “free market system” literally sounded a death knell for that system, and suggested that anything Bush touched turns to ashes.

If this was truly a more global village, how many people from around the world would have joined lines, like Americans did on Election Day, to exercise their vote, their democratic right, and perhaps, the fact that they want to vote is a cry from the hearts of those many who long for the winds of democracy to blow in and through their respective countries? But what responsibilities does Obama have to the rest of the world?

No doubt Obama knows that is he bound by the shackles of his race, his paternal ancestry in Kenya, who are looking to him to make changes, as if he is the American representative of Africa in America, of those who in America claim association with him because of his skin color to lift them up not so much with a wave of his hand, but more of doing what he promised, after he himself has witnessed and experienced the suffering, downtrodden state, and systematic disenfranchisement of those like him in America; he has the sword of Damocles hanging over his head, a sword of extraordinary expectations from a nation and a world tired of duplicity and forked-tongue speaking, where promises are made with ulterior motives, brazen as they are revealing that they weren’t made in the best interest of those to whom they were made, and though he has good intentions, he would be beset by a machinery that has been grinding inexorably for more than 20 years, producing in the nation’s capital corruption, deceit, and secrecy. Really, rot at the core. And, as he assumes office, he himself would be stepping into this mire. The hope, a word which he has been trumpeting throughout his campaign, is that he would not be sucked into and be consumed by the god-like or quasi-monarchial status conferred on a president, but rise above it, perhaps hovering over the muck, to effect change, another word in his campaign mantra.

Experiencing a Food Pantry, is it for me?

I stood on the uptown platform on Christmas Eve afternoon with two food-laden blue plastic bags waiting for the #1 train to arrive. Two women I recognized as being where I had just left, came toward me, heads bent and with bags hanging from each of their hands, their blue bags encased in upscale shopping bags, hiding the fact that they had just come from one of the city’s food pantries on the Upper West Side, where they were able to get raw packaged and canned food supplies to take home to their families. A thought flashed through my mind, in these days, what is it to be ashamed of if a person has to go to a food pantry for assistance and to augment their food stocks? It is necessary to get food where ever one can, with out too much hassle or cost.

This experience may seem mundane or ordinary to some, and to others, unusual, as it undoubtedly was for me. But when I considered the recent announcement by New York Governor David Patterson that he would make available $1 million to assist food pantries in the state, then the idea of going to a food pantry didn’t seem all together too much of a issue, except it would if I put pride before my stomach.

With economic constraints around the city hitting non-profit organizations, the governor’s announcement may be welcome news to those non-profit organizations with food pantries who have seen a significant drop in donations from individuals, other organizations and corporations; some may complain it’s not enough to provide for the burgeoning number of unemployed or under paid people seeking help with basic food, and some may not be able to accept it, because they no longer have pantries. But I wonder, with hundreds of food pantries in existence and many more organizations starting them as a social response, akin to the era of soup kitchens, but with less overhead and operational commitment; how much out of the $1million would any food pantry statewide receive to effectively stave off people clamoring for help and facing empty shelves? In this experience, I realized, that whether or not a person was employed, accessing the services of a food pantry is not restricted to the unemployed, but is equally available to those whose income makes it necessary for them to find other means of supplementing their food; putting pride or social status aside in the interest of obtaining food, especially if its free.

Rewinding to about an hour and a half before I stood on the uptown subway platform, at about 12:30 pm, I had followed a suggestion from one of my friends and headed downtown to the food pantry to see if I could get help with food. Taking the #1 train from my stop at 168^th Street, I disembarked from the downtown #1 train at the 86^th Street and Broadway stop, walked west to the corner of West End Avenue to the church of St. Paul and St. Andrew.

I walked resolutely through the misty rain, tiny drops of water falling from an overcast sky, remnants of ice and snow littered the sidewalk. I approached the wrought iron green-painted box like enclosure with steel steps leading down to a basement under the massive concrete structure of the church where a young Latina woman was closing the gate after escorting another woman out. When I enquired about the food pantry, she replied that the pantry was closed for lunch, from noon to 1:00pm and suggested that if I wanted pantry services, I could wait inside the church. A sign connected to the wire meshing detailed the pantry’s hours of operation, Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 12:00, and 1:00pm to 3:00pm.

As I had no umbrella, and my only protection against the December cold and rain was a wool hat and a pea coat, I took the young lady’s advice and sought shelter in the church. When I entered the building through a side door, I felt as if I was suddenly transported to another place: inside the shadows seemed darker and deeper, and the silence noticeable. Where was anyone, I asked myself? Wandering around unhindered, I found myself in the church, proper; I had in fact entered into a vestibule cum office or reception area. The church seemed cavernous, its pews were aligned at a slight angle, not the traditional straight forward looking to the front set-up, but a semblance of a semi-circle, as if embracing the vacant sanctuary ahead. Above in the darker gloom of the church’s barrel vaulted ceiling, the occasional patches of white revealed where the darkened, sooth stained paint had peeled, and over the sanctuary was a large gray banner with black letters speaking to harmony existing between brothers and sisters. The yellow or gold stained glass windows that lined the walls, in three rows at differing heights, all bore similar generic patterns at each level, but which in themselves were devoid of character, except one, which showed a man kneeling before another who was seated throne like, and carried a plate below crediting the family who donated it to the church.

When the time arrived, I ventured out of the church’s warmth and protective gloom into the rain, and walked to the green painted steel steps, descended and through a door, entered into a vast hall. Pausing mid stride, I looked around, oriented myself, my senses attuned, observing, analyzing and processing this new experience. At a table in front of an opening which led to an office, a woman stood there as if guarding the objects on the table, which were a sheet that clients sign and a stack of clip boards with application forms with bank styled chain-attached pens affixed to the metallic clasp. I asked the woman, who struggled to speak and be understood in English, what to do as a first timer to the pantry. She pointed to a sheet of paper, said I had to sign in and then handed me an application on a clip board. The application itself asked questions which included, race, social security number, date of birth, income, employment status, and so on. I thought, the only thing missing from this application is a box to tick off that I was willing to provide a specimen for DNA and that with the social security number and date of birth, as well as name, address and phone number, I may as well be giving away my identity for the sake of food.

After I’d completed the application, writing on the social security line a bold N/A, not applicable, I waited for a short moment and was invited by another Latina woman to sit in a chair in front of a desk, where she proceeded to conduct an interview. Before she began, I was asked to sign my name on another sheet of paper, which she explained was to log the clients seen by a counselor. I never knew what was the purpose of signing my name on the first sheet of paper, perhaps that was also a log to count the number of people who had entered the pantry, and perhaps the two log signings was to see if there were any discrepancies, between the clients who had come to the pantry and those who had actually entered the pantry.

The counselor mentioned that the information on the application was not shared with anyone, but was used by the organization for statistical purposes, to determine the number of clients, and to assist with coordinating the food supply. What became apparent by the end of the interview, was that the counselor simply wanted to verify that the person sitting before her was the same person who filled out the application for assistance. Not once during the interview did she look at the form, but asked questions that were already asked and answered on the form, boxes ticked off and lines written on, such as what was my apartment number, my date of birth and if I had completed college and possessed a four-year degree. Then she asked if I had medical insurance and if not, would I be interested in a hospital offering low rates, at which suggestion I added that I didn’t want another bill. But thought to myself, who was she kidding? A low cost hospital in New York City? I wondered what this organization was getting in return for the hospital referrals.

When she was finished with the interview, she reached over to a side of her desk and selected a plastic badge holder with a blue sheet of paper on which was printed a shopping list, of sorts, where instead of prices, there were points alongside the items. As briefly as possible, the Latina counselor explained what little she knew of the pantry’s food points system, as in what form are the vegetables, canned or loose, and what quantity constitutes how many points, questions she couldn’t answer, but referred me to one of the attendants in the pantry, and told me that I was only able access the pantry’s services once a month. It also occurred to me that there were different color lists for families of different sizes; one woman had a yellow paper list, which allowed her to collect food for her and her family of three, and another had a green papered badge, which allowed her different food allotments.

The actual pantry was a study in independence. This was a pantry unlike others with which I was familiar, where you are handed a plastic shopping bag with food the distributing organization thinks you should have. Here, clients entered a large room containing metallic shelves laden with packaged and canned food, a loose vegetable area, and two large upright glass sliding door cooler, one containing dairy products and the other with various types of meat. On one side of the pantry were glass panels, where anyone in the pantry area could clearly be seen and monitored by the staff from the outside. Based on the plastic badge colored paper shopping list, a client selected what he or she wanted from the shelves.

Being a novice to this experience, one of the pantry’s attendants accompanied and assisted me in choosing items from the list that were on the shelves. When he saw I had understood the system, he left me to continue selecting, but hovered behind me to ensure I had really got the hang of the pantry. Because I was a single man, my shopping list was blue, only allowing food for one person. According to the list, I could only get three cans or three pounds vegetables worth three points; two one pint bags of rice and a box or oats, worth three points; dairy, meat, and fruit, one point each. I was allowed to have pasta, but on a shelf was a single box of spaghetti, which I reached for, but quickly retracted my hand. The box had been opened. The attendant assured me that it was okay, but when he saw my hesitation, he said I didn’t have to take it and that the staff would put the box of opened spaghetti in a plastic bag, tie the top, and place it back on the shelf where someone else would take it. I looked at him in horror, thanked him for his help and turned away.

While I was selecting food items from the shelves, I checked the ingredients of many of the canned foods for mono sodium glutamate, MSG, or other types of preservatives. I was determined to scrutinize each can to ensure that, not because I was getting free food, I had to have unhealthy food. I looked at one can of tomato sauce and noticed that there was a supermarket price label on it. It occurred to me that for many food pantries around the city, when they have reached below their established threshold level of food, donated, they actually go out and buy food from supermarkets to augment their stocks.

When I had completed my selections, I arrived at a long aluminum covered table where two women, dressed in aprons, performed a simulated supermarket check-out, except there was no cash register, moving conveyer belt or card scanner. The older woman who had given me the application at the beginning was there to check me out, looking through my blue bag to ensure that I had taken my blue shopping list allotment, nothing more or less. Noticing that I was new and unfamiliar to the pantry and since it was Christmas Eve, she offered me two additional cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup and a box of assorted herbal teas. My foray into the world of food pantries and donated food complete, I left the pantry, climbed the green metal stairs to the street and headed across Broadway to the subway entrance and to wait for the train on the uptown platform.