So, I am going to just write 3 short thoughts per day here, and hopefully this will get me to write more regularly.

1. Most of you know that facebook profiles have a "favorite quotes" section. One of the more common quotations to list is:

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
- Howard Thurman

I agree with this quote on some level, but I feel that in terms of international aid/development, thinking like this leads to social policies and charities that make no sense whatsoever.

I was looking into the One Laptop Per Child project recently. Although it seems like a great idea, I feel like it makes no sense in terms of cost effectiveness. Though their laptops have been specifically designed to be inexpensive, $200 is A LOT of money in the developing world. If the numbers that are given in Three Cups of Tea (the book I just read about a person who started a charity to build schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan) are accurate, this is pay a teacher's salary for an entire year in many countries. I feel like it makes no sense in comparison to building/improving schools and libraries (both the physical infrastructure as well as the curriculum) which can educate many children at once, in addition to providing a much needed social support network (having role models/mentors/counselors, etc.) which can meet many other needs of the children.

I think about this in some of my volunteer placements. Although I am generally very happy about the places that I am working, a few concerns do remain in my mind. At the deaf school, the GVN (global volunteer network) volunteers don't seem to be particularly useful. We don't understand either Vietnamese or sign language, so we just do arts and crafts with them. This is something that their regular teachers could certainly do with them (and really, since they translate into sign language for us, they are pretty much leading the class). The only real positive thing that I think we accomplish is that the kids are excited to have visitors, especially visitors from foreign countries, no matter how seemingly useless they are. I am hoping to find a way that I can bring something new and exciting to the program (maybe Happy Hands - as featured in Napoleon Dynamite! haha). But it is not one of our main programs, I only spend 1 hour a week there, so it is not a huge deal either way.

2. Meeting the street children at the Home of Affection (not really a home/orphanage, but an education center for street kids) has been the most rewarding placement for me so far. One kid in particular can read in English quite well... and I can't imagine that I would have become so well educated had I grown up on the streets in Vietnam.

3. I am getting along very well with the other volunteers living in my house, but being with other westerners is reducing the value of being abroad. I am in Vietnam, but I am not really learning Vietnamese by immersion, because I speak English with the other volunteers for most of the day. I have been trying to make up for this by studying Vietnamese very hard in my free time, but it isn't the same as true immersion where I have to learn Vietnamese if I hope to communicate at all. I think that some of the other volunteers are kind of disappointed that I spend so much of my free time studying and not socializing with them. But, I really did not come here to make friends with some Australians and New Zealanders. While they are fantastic people, I know that I would be MUCH more useful as a volunteer if I knew some Vietnamese and that is my number 1 priority. Even now, my very basic Vietnamese skills have helped me a lot in teaching a classes (I can say things like - "Everyone" or "Listen" or "Repeat" or "Again" or "Write it down" or "Stand up").