MARY AND MARTHA

Phil purchased this movie a few days ago because the cover looked a little girlie and he thought it would be something I might enjoy (a girlie looking cover is the ultimate clue).  Of course, because the DVD's we get in our 'hood aren't 100%........official........the cover pictures vary from the real deal, as do the descriptions.  Some descriptions are in other languages or are absent completely and so we usually do our best "judge a movie by its unofficial cover" in order to select new ones to view.  This strategy is usually an effective one.  We were bang on with Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses.  Sometimes, however, this strategy fails us and I end up a sobbing mess about 20 minutes into the show - when a sweet, cute, family movie takes a dramatic turn for the absolute worst and children end up dying.  Like in this movie.  Yes, we were WAY WRONG about this movie. 

It all started out nice enough with a woman and her son going on a 6 month adventure to Africa.  The boy was videotaping giraffes with a big grin, playing soccer in the savannah, and being all silly with his mother.  I was loving it - holding hands with my hubby, having a tea, and smiling at how nice it was for Phil to think of me when the Movie Man stopped by.

But then...

BAM. 

The boy gets malaria and dies. 

HORRIBLE.  (all CAPS).

I looked at Phil like "FOR REAL?!"  I remember saying, "why can't they just keep learning and having fun together and for that to be the whole movie?"  You see - I'm the type that likes to keep as much of my reality in a bubble as I can AND 100% of my entertainment in a bubble.  It's simply NO FUN to cry it out.  But this is the thing about watching movies from the Magical Movie Man, rather than watching movies that are the talk of the town (or at least in the newspaper!) back home.  I'm sure people that viewed this movie in Canada had some sort of a "heads up" on the devastation because they had either seen previews for the movie (which we don't see here) or they had read a legitimate summary of the storyline prior to watching it.  YOU LUCKY PEOPLE YOU.  It's not so convenient everywhere ;)

Anyways, I toughed it out through the death of ANOTHER son and managed to watch Mary and Martha in its entirety.  I had three main thoughts when the video finished:

1)  I hate mosquitoes. 
2)  Nory isn't going to Africa anytime soon. (Happy about that, Grandparents?!)
3)  How can I make a donation to help prevent malaria? 

From you, I am looking for support on thought #1, no comment on thought #2, and some SERIOUS answers for thought #3.  If you know of any organization that delivers bug nets to areas in need, I would appreciate the information!  There was a speech in the movie that really stuck with me....

Did you know that if you take every single person killed in a terrorist act around the world in the last 20 years -- and add to that every life that's been lost in the Middle East since the Six Day War in '67 -- and add to that every single American life we lost in Vietnam and Korea -- and every single other military conflict America's been involved in since then, Iraq, Afghanistan... If you take all those lives -- that we'd all have given so much to save -- you've still got to multiply them by two to get to the number of kids who die of malaria every single year.

Scary, right? 

It's time to sacrifice some lattes, PEOPLE!  'Tis the season of giving and GIVE we WILL DO.