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Blood Exchanged for Food

© Jeff Taylor

Article prepared by Mission Without Borders staff

Moises Medina, accompanied by Artan Metohu, recently visited many of the families in Albania who are registered in the Mission Without Borders Family to Family Program. One family in the Durres community has experienced such extreme poverty that the mother of the household has been selling her blood for 13years in order to make enough toprovide a little bit of food for the family to eat. Even though her body has become weak and bruised, still she sells her blood, as she has found that this is one of her only means of income and survival. The following is an account of this family, and the trials they have faced during a life of poverty.

Mimosa Llani lives as a single mother, raising her two children and caring for her mother. Mimosa has two daughters, five year old Sonila, and nine year old Maria. Mimosa considers herself fortunate, as she has a job as a cleaning lady, working three or four days out of the month.

The work Mimosa has does not bring in nearly enough to support her family and mother, however, and it is more often than not that she will go hungry,in order to give what meager amount of food she has to her growing children. Years ago, Mimosa discovered that she can sell her blood, which she does as often as is allowed, to help bring in a bit more money to support her family. Mimosa has been selling her blood since the age of nineteen; she is now thirty-two. She is only allowed to donate blood every two months, yet even on this schedule, because she does not receive the proper nutrition, she is often very ill due to frequent loss of blood.

Mimosa explained that both she and her mother have practically no income at all, and what little they have in the home, by way of furniture, was given to her by her sister. Mimosa's mother, Dile, is an invalid, and is blind in one eye. For this reason, Mimosa works very hard to care not only for her children, but for her mother as well.

With black and blue bruises on her arms from selling her blood, Mimosa's only response to being told she should not sell her blood is, "What can I do? We need to eat." Even so, selling her blood only helps to buy a meager amount of food; her rent has not been paid in four months, as she does not have any money left after paying other bills.

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