My Hero

Heroes are hard to come by.  And when you find one, invariably they let us down.  The fault lies in Human Nature.  We are irrational and emotional.  We keep secrets far from our public personas, and the information age increasingly brings them to light.  Heroes fall to earth and become as human as the rest of us.

Until now.  I've found my hero, and it's this man here:

Meet John Green.  I met him through his online Youtube series Crash Course World History, a channel of quick, funny and totally fresh takes on the story of man.  I loved it, devouring the episodes like a new series on Netflix.  This man has a unique ability to take very complex things and make them understandable.  Though my class couldn't handle too much of the fast paced videos, they enriched my understanding of world history, and made me a better teacher.

As I'm coming to learn, that's just a drop in the bucket of what this guy does.  There's a great primer here, that I won't retype.  He doesn't just make history fun, he's on a bigger mission to fight "world suck."  He does this largely by making videos that take confusing, contentious and often politicized issues and explaining them in a remarkably clear, and remarkably fact based way.  And that gives you hope, once you can grasp the issues and problems in your mind, you know you can find a solution.  This video on why health care in America costs so much opened my eyes, pissed me off, and cheered me up all at the same time.

John Green is who I want to be.  He is why I became a teacher.  Funny and engaging, he inspires me.  To learn.  To understand the world.  And to make the world a better place.  That's essentially what I've been hoping to impart to my students these last seven years.  Who knows if I've made an impact, but I've tried and will keep trying.  And now it's a little bit easier since I've got someone showing me the way.

Do Something Awesome Today

I've talked about various projects on here, but this one is near and dear to my heart.

I spent most of last summer in Ecuador, setting up a business that would take college students interested in social change overseas. There they would work with social entrepreneurs, see that they too could make a difference, and come back to the States pumped up and ready to change the world.

While the business never got off the ground, the time spent there bore some fruit. In the course of out travels my partner and I met Juan Andrade, a Catholic priest who runs a foundation called Mano Amiga (Helping Hand).

What he does is nothing short of amazing. In Ecuador, if a child loses the family support network there are few other places to turn. Many live on the street begging or selling trinkets. In the worst cases they turn to prostiution, gangs, or violence just to survive. This begets more violence, crime, and poverty and so the cycle continues.

Mano Amiga intervenes and provides them with shelter, food, an education and love. The fundamental social change is this: rather than a detriment, these children will become contributors to their society as business owners, vetrenarians, teachers, etc. (Those are just a few of the things the children told me they wanted to be.)

While Mano Amiga does amazing work, it is limited financially. The government of Ecuador provides $1 per day per child to care for the children. With food, hygene, clothes, and school fees this is woefully short.

One of the biggest expenses is food. Rice and beans are the staple. Vegetables and fruit are uncommon. Meat is rare. A nutritionist recently diagnosed over half the children as mal-nourished.

Fortunately there is a solution! Some nearby farmland was donated to the foundation, and my ex-business partner has partnered with a Rotoact group from Colorado to provide the foundation with the equipment, livestock, and seed necessary to make the farm produce enough food to nourish the children properly.

The benefits of this are threefold:
1.) The kids will be nourished properly
2.) Mano Amiga will spend less on food, enabling it to reach more children.
3.) The farm may eventually generate income for the foundation, again enabling it to reach more chilren.

So if you like feeding hungry kids while eliminating poverty, take a look at the project site. They are over halfway to their fundraising goal. I'd encourage everyone who reads it to donate something, even $10 means a lot.

If you still have doubts take a look at the kids. They were so friendly, open, caring, and above all happy, despite their backgrounds, and the poverty they lived in even at the foundation.

A Real Slice of Dominican Life

Updates on my journey thus far:

• Megan and I traveled to Rio San Juan, a small town on the northern coast. It's biggest draws are the beautiful beaches nearby and the minimal tourist presence. Nearly every night the whole town gathered together to watch teens from various neighborhoods play basketball on some outdoor courts. It was the real deal, they had uniforms, referees, score clocks, and even an emcee. Best of all they blasted merengue between quarters.
  
• After five days there we said good-bye. She went east to the beaches of the Samana Penninsula with a newfound Italian friend. I went west to Cabarete, international extreme sports hotspot, where I tried my hand, with mixed results, at windsurfing.
• And finally two days ago I arrived in Las Terrenas, where I'll be for the next two weeks working for the Fundacion Mahatma Gandhi until I head home.
  

The amount of expats living here is amazing. Everywhere you look there's a white face whizzing by on a motorcycle or 4-wheeler (the North Coast's preferred methods of transportation). A few blocks down from the foundation, you can find a half-dozen mulleted, middle-aged Germans sitting outside a liquor store drinking beer from noon til dark.

Like everywhere else on the coast it's hot and muggy. I sweat throughout the day and a good part of the night. It's also incredibly dusty. Fortunately the beach is only a few minutes from my hotel.

But I'm not here to sweat or meet old mulleted men. The Fundacion Mahatma Gandhi runs a small community library, the only library in town, which doubles as a community center. The library is small but neat building, with a covered seating area that can be used as a classroom or meeting area. Next to the library is a concrete structure that has a half-dozen classrooms. Outside those buildings is a large field, partially mowed, where the kids can play games. The unmowed part contains, for reasons unknown, a broken down jeep and piles of concrete. Led by a super-friendly man named Jose and his wife Annette, the foundation gives children a place to read, learn, or just come and hang out in a structured and safe environment.

Right now is the last week of summer camp, and I'm helping teach the 6, 7, and 8 year olds. It's been tiring, yet rewarding. The other volunteers are fantastic and have welcomed me with open arms. They genuinely love kids, as is obvoius by watching them for thirty seconds. We are all paying to be here. That seems to have weeded out the free-loaders and malcontents, usually those just looking for a paycheck, that I've seen at other summer camps.

Most of all, I'm glad I'm finally doing something productive. There's only so many beaches you can see before the start to blend together. And up until now 99% of the contact I've had with Dominicans was with the art dealers, taxi drivers, waiters, hotel staff, etc etc. The tourist machinary is so fine-tuned here it's hard to break free. I started to feel that I was wasting my time and my money.

But not today. As I walked to the internet cafe one kid waved at me from across the street and another, Nicolas, ran up to me and gave me a big huh. He is a story in himself, and for that you'll have to read tomorrow!

Answered Prayer: Yee-Ha and Hallelujah!

Yesterday on the bus ride from Santo Domingo I was plugging along through the Book of Leviticus on my quest to finally read the Bible through cover-to-cover. At the time I was feeling a little bummed: the trip hadn't yet met my expectations, and there was--and is--a nagging little voice in my head asking why am I not doing something more worthwhile with my time. But more on that in another post. I said a little prayer and asked for God to give me a glimpse of Him somehow.

So lo and behold, staying at our hotel last night was a youth group of 24 from Otter Creek church in Brentwood, Tennessee. It was my Oregon Duck's hat that started the conversation, they being SEC fans. Apparently two of their congregration have been living here in beautiful Rio San Juan, and they came down to help with their ministry.

They were all overly kind and their accents down right charming. They invited me to join them for worship as the sun set. I joined their circle on the third floor balcony of Bahia Blanca, overlooking the Atlantic. After worship they shared their favorite moments from their time here. They worked with some children who lived at a nearby dump, teaching, ministering, and basically just loving them. It was easy to see through the tears and choked voices that this trip had really meant something to them. They had formed relationships and bonds that they would take back with them to the States, that some would have with them the rest of their lives. Perhaps most importantly, a number remarked on how they never knew they could make such a difference. It was moving and inspiring.

As they closed the evening their leader thanked me for joining them. I stood up and promptly recieved a long ovation--for what I'm not sure. After the clapping died down I told them about my prayer from earlier that day and how they had been the answer. After thanking them for blessing me, I walked off into the tropical night to more applause. If only all my evenings ended like that.

The whole event really got me thinking on what I could be, and maybe even should be doing with my summers. But as I said earlier, that is for another post. Now I must decide if I want to snorkle, try to learn to scuba, or simply just splash in the waves.

Project of the Week

It's becoming a weekend habit. I spent an hour today perusing Global Giving. It's hard to choose what to support with so many projects doing amazing things. From providing women in the Sudan with seeds to sow so they can feed their families, to reeducating former child soldiers in Colombia, to planting trees in Haiti, there's something for every taste.

It makes me feel guilty to click past them, like I'm walking by a starving child on the street with a ham sandwich in my pocket (we've all been there). If I were a millionaire I'd fund them all. Until then, I'll be posting a project every week that I find inspiring. If you feel inspired go check it out and give what you can, even if it's just $5 or $10 bucks. If you do, or if there's a project you want me to highlight leave a comment and let me know.

Today's project is the one I finally settled on today. Here's the info from Global Giving:
Turning Waste into Wealth (from Global Giving)
Summary
Engaging 1000 households in solid waste management, thereby improving the living environment for poor people as well as rejuvenating soil and safeguarding agricultural biodiversity.

Project Needs and Beneficiaries
With industrialisation and urbanisation, the quantity of waste is increasing and the composition of waste is becoming more diversified. Today, waste in India is being burnt or dumped; either producing hazardous smoke or leeching into the soil and water. Implementing solid waste management schemes in Kancheepuram District, Tamil Nadu, would mobilise entire communities around the waste-issue, while offering a simple solution for how to turn "waste into wealth" - e.g. vermicomposting and recycling.

Activities
We will implement solid waste management schemes where the community is mobilised and learns the importance of segregating their household waste. The waste will be collected and processed through e.g. composting, biogas, recycling, etc.

How You Can Help
$25 - Train one Green Friend, garbage collector, to mobilize and increase household segregation of waste in towns
$50 - Provide a Green Friend, garbage collector, proper uniform and protective gear to ensure the safety of the worker
$100 - Conduct awareness campaign for poor, rural communities on the benefits of solid waste management for public health, sanitation and the environment

Go check it out and change the world!

It's Mother's Day, time to save the world.

Usually I associate Mother's Day with flowers and chocolate, but this year I'm getting my wonderful mother (I have the best mom in the world) something different. While on a late night on-line chess binge yesterday I came across a link to Global Giving.

This amazing website connects donors with great projects all around the globe, ranging from environmental change to hunger relief to education. One cool feature is that it tells you exactly what your money will do. For $20 this project will provide clean drinking water to one Bangladeshi child for a year. Give $250 to the same project and you will contruct latrines for five families (I thank God for our sewer system every day).

Right now they have a Mother's Day giving campaign relating to women. So instead of flowers I made a donation in my mom's name to free one Nepalese girl from being shipped off by her family to work in the city. In Nepal, poor rural families will sell their daughters as young as 7 into servitude for $40 or so. As you can imagine, there is a lot of abuse.

The group I gave to uses donations to pay for the girl's education, and provides the family with a pig as compensation for the lost money. Everybody wins. Girl gets to stay home and gets an education. Family gets a pig. Mom gets a card that I personalized from Global Giving telling her that I loved her enough to free a child in her name!

When I woke up this morning did I think I'd being freeing a Nepalese girl from bonded labor? No. That's Global Giving's genius. It allows anyone with the internet and a credit card to make a difference anywhere in the world. And you don't have to give a lot to do something amazing.

Make mom happy and see what you can do today.