The Essay

As some of you may know, I originally created my video for a scholarship application to Tulane University in New Orleans. If you are interested in more details about how and why I created the video, please check out my interview with teen website PopCosmo.com.

Well, good news... I got the scholarship! The official name for the scholarship is the John Hainkel Louisiana Scholars Award, and it is basically a full ride to Tulane. I am SO excited to attend Tulane starting next fall, where I hope to study public health, journalism, and Spanish, among other things.

The scholarship application also required that an essay be submitted along with the project; so, without further ado, I would like to share with you that very essay:

My mom and I were in a stationery shop; I was five years old. While she was going about her boring grown-up business, I was wandering around the store admiring the pretty trinkets. My sight fell on something unexplainably but undeniably beautiful: a little, pink velvet pillow. My five-year-old self was in love. Please buy it for me, Mommy, I begged. She refused. However, she told me, if you save your own money, I will bring you back here, and you can buy it. I had never bought anything with my own money before. I didn't even know how I would get money. But the elegant little pillow was irresistible: I imagined a glass slipper resting on it, or perhaps a sleeping fairy. I would find a way to save money, and I would have the pillow.

I saved every dollar, every quarter, every dime I earned. After several weeks, I had saved six, maybe seven dollars. I had never had so much money of my own in my life. I'm sure my mom had expected me to forget about the pillow after a few days, but I couldn't stop fantasizing about its magical potential. One night, she came into my room and sat on my bed. Gabriella, she said, I know you have been doing a really good job saving your money to buy that pillow. But I want to tell you about another way you could spend your money. Of course, it is totally up to you—it is your money, and you can spend it however you like. But I thought you might want to know about this. She read me an article about a Jewish organization that took small donations and sent them to a synagogue in Ethiopia. There, the synagogue community used the money to buy meals for the children in their congregation. When she finished explaining that my money would probably be used for a girl about my own age, I immediately got out of bed, gathered my small fortune, and handed it to my mom. I want to pay for a girl's lunch, I said. I have a lot of pillows.

Agernesh in front of her synagogue 2000

Concern for the health of girls around the world has always been a part of me. No other global or local issue touches me like the horrors of child marriage, human trafficking, or female genital mutilation. These abominable yet socially acceptable practices in many developing countries are not only a gross violation of human rights, but they also represent the deeply held cultural belief that women are inherently inferior to men.

More than anything, I want education for every girl and woman on this planet. I truly believe that if you educate a girl, you educate a nation. Since I was one year old, I have attended the school founded by my dad's parents in 1965. My Aunt Karen taught me in the two-year-old class; my Uncle Kurt was the groundskeeper at the elementary school; my Aunt Helen taught me AP Environmental Science, my Aunt Becca taught me AP Physics, and my Pop Pop taught me AP Chemistry. For me, school has never just been school. Education means family. Livelihood. Nurturing future generations and remembering past ones. I want to share this gift with the whole world.

The girl whose lunch I paid for twelve years ago sent me a photograph of herself and a short letter. Her name is Agernesh Sisay Askatach, and she was seven at the time. In the photograph, she is wearing a pink dress and no shoes, holding a little brown bundle, and standing in front of a small stone synagogue. I know I will probably never meet Agernesh. But my dream is to meet many girls like her and to give them what everyone on this planet deserves—even the poor—even the underprivileged—even girls:

Opportunity.

Kony2012

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. 

- Margaret Mead 

This was certainly true for Jason Russell, Laren Poole, and Bobby Bailey, three young, energetic film students who, in 2003, traveled to Africa in search of adventure. There, they learned about a little-known, long-running war in which children were being abducted and turned into soldiers—sometimes even being forced to kill their own parents.

Many of you know by now what happened next. These guys started Invisible Children, an advocacy group that has created several documentaries and videos to bring attention to these children, including the wildly successful video that has almost 40 million views on YouTube at the time I am writing this. This video was powerful, shocking, and, in my opinion, quite informative, but like anything that gets significant attention, it has also gotten significant criticism: They don't have a plan for what to do after Kony is finally captured. They are only spending 32% of their money on actual aid. Joseph Kony isn't even in Uganda anymore. The video is misleading and oversimplifies the problem.

First of all, of course the video simplifies the issue—you can't get the attention of tens of millions of people if you have to explain every minute detail. However, those who saw the video and became interested can easily research this topic further on their own. While some of these attacks on the IC are blatantly untrue, others are a bit more complicated. Three of the criticisms against the Kony2012 movement in particular really struck a nerve with me.

1. The White Man's Burden
I have read several criticisms of Invisible Children and Kony2012, like this one, that mention that the movement is simply a product of the “White Man's Burden.” These critics present us with a sort of Catch-22: because we are white and privileged, we should feel guilty about the poverty and corruption in the third-world countries of Africa; however, it is wrong to try to help the people of these countries because of course we are only doing it selfishly to relieve our own white man's guilt.

I, for one, do not feel guilty about these problems because I'm white; in fact, I don't feel guilty at all. I feel angry. I'm angry that just because a child is born in Africa, she might have to live in fear of war, kidnappers, and AIDS; I am angry that Joseph Kony and his followers are abducting children from their homes, arming them with guns, and forcing them to kill; and frankly, I am angry that some people can justify ignoring these problems by claiming our aid is nothing more than the “White Man's Burden.” No, I do not feel some deep sense of guilt that I was born into a white, middle class family in the United States of America, and no, I am not outraged by Joseph Kony's horrendous war crimes just because the victims are African. Call me crazy, but these issues upset me because the crimes Kony is committing are crimes against humanity—against human beings—and I could really not care less what shade of brown their skin is.

2. Invisible Children is Just an Advocacy Group
I've seen and heard several complaints that the Invisible Children spends too much money on filmmaking and awareness and not enough on actual aid. First of all, the IC spends about a third of their money on “programs on the ground in LRA-affected areas that provide protection, rehabilitation and development assistance.” But more importantly, I don't understand why people are vilifying advocacy and awareness. As one blogger snarkily comments, “these problems are highly complex, not one-dimensional and, frankly, aren’t of the nature that can be solved by postering, film-making and changing your Facebook profile picture, as hard as that is to swallow.” I disagree. Kony2012's goal is to bring attention to these problems so that the government—and the world—do not ignore or forget about these invisible children. So if changing your profile picture will get your friends to start asking “Who is this Kony guy I've been hearing so much about?”, then I say do it.

The fact is, this video is getting people talking, starting a conversation. And that fact, in and of itself, is a good thing. These guys went to Africa, saw atrocities being committed, asked for support from Washington, and got no help. Then they started spreading the word about these children, got a significant following, and suddenly Washington paid attention. This is the truth about U.S. politics: politicians will listen if they think the people—their voters—care. And not just some voters. A lot of voters. So yes, the IC is amazing at spreading awareness, and yes, this is what a lot of their efforts go towards. I don't understand why this is such a bad thing. I'll admit, I have had an Invisible Children's club at my high school since before I can remember, and it wasn't until I saw this video that I really knew what it was or what it did. So say what you want about the IC or about Kony2012, but we can all agree on one thing—their message is being heard, and it's being heard loud and clear.

3. Why Aren't They Doing This, That, and the Other Thing, Too?
And finally, the criticism against Kony2012 that is just all too familiar is that the IC is focusing on the “wrong” issues or not addressing enough issues. When I posted my “It Only Takes a Girl” video a couple of months ago, I got critical comments complaining that I didn't talk about male circumcision, or I ignored problems concerning abuse and rape here in the U.S., or I didn't address boys' education, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. My response to those people, and the similar critics of the Invisible Children, is this: one person, one organization, one video, cannot do everything. If you think combatting malaria in Africa is more important than stopping Joseph Kony, great. If you think cleaning up industrial waste and pollution here in the U.S., or eradicating polio, or fighting corruption in the Ugandan government is important—well, you're right. All of those things are important. But that doesn't diminish or disqualify the mission of the Invisible Children. Okay, so they aren't also addressing the issues of Nodding disease or the problem of oil. But these are simply not their mission—at least, not until they complete their current mission of bringing Joseph Kony to justice and providing a basis of support for the children of war. If you care about some other issue and think money should be spent on it instead, then start a charity, make an incredibly powerful video, and collect donations for your cause. But people simply cannot expect the Invisible Children to do it all.

I am all about asking questions and not just accepting things at face value, but I don't think the Invisible Children is the sneaky, devious organization people are making it out to be. Three guys went to Uganda and met a boy who was ready to die, and they made him a promise that they would do everything they could to help. No, it isn't because they are white, and no, they can't do everything. But they can do something—they can tell the world about these invisible children and make sure we never forget. In the words of American author, historian and Unitarian clergyman Edward Everett Hale:

I am only one, but still I am one. 

I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; 

and because I cannot do everything, 

I will not refuse to do something I can do.

Read of the Week: A Thousand Splendid Suns

I'm the kind of reader who meanders slowly through books—sort of “smelling every rose and daisy on the side of the road along the way” type of thing, if that even makes sense. Half the Sky, a book by Sheryl WuDunn and Nick Kristof that I can't recommend highly enough, took me approximately a month to read. I like to absorb every detail, taste each word and phrase individually and suck out every drop of meaning. I highlight, I annotate, I bookmark. Maybe it's because I borrowed Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns from a friend (and therefore couldn't mark it up with my random thoughts and comments) that I devoured it so quickly. But I think the real reason I sped through it in just a few days is that it was simply impossible to put down. Each character was so vivid, so real. I was completely absorbed in their lives—their pasts, their hardships, and their shaky futures.

Many of you may know of Khaled Hosseini's masterpiece The Kite Runner. I have not yet had a chance to read this novel, but from what I understand, if you connected with Hosseini's clear, true, and heart-wrenching writing style in The Kite Runner, you will definitely enjoy A Thousand Splendid Suns as well. A Thousand Splendid Suns takes place in Afghanistan from the mid-1960's to the present day, following the lives of two girls, Mariam and Laila, as they endure war, ethnic strife, loss of loved ones, and abusive marriage. Hosseini shows the political conflicts in Afghanistan—the Soviet invasion, the Taliban take-over, and life after the Taliban—through the eyes of ordinary Afghani women.

The relationships—mother and daughter, father and daughter, husband and wife, young lovers and childhood friends—are what make this novel so incredibly powerful and poignant. Hosseini makes us fall in love with a character, then absolutely hate her, then fall even more deeply in love with her again. He makes us sob at the loss of a loved one, then sob again—with joy—at a beautiful reunion. He takes us on an emotional journey with the characters nearly as tumultuous as the political strife happening around them. The Los Angeles Times said it well: “[He] offers us the sweep of historic upheavals narrated with the intimacy of family and village life . . . What keeps this novel vivid and compelling are Hosseini's eye for the textures of daily life and his ability to portray a full range of emotions, from the smoldering rage of an abused wife to the early flutters of maternal love when a women discovers she is carrying a baby.”

Besides the beautiful intimacy of the story, A Thousand Splendid Suns also imparts important lessons about the status of women, and the status of the developing world in the eyes of first world nations like the U.S. One of the two central characters of the story is Laila, a fair-haired girl born in Kabul, Afghanistan. Laila's father Babi, a university-educated, modern Afghani man, tells his daughter that under the communists, “it's a good time to be a woman in Afghanistan. And you can take advantage of that, Laila. Of course, women's freedom—here, he shook his head ruefully—is also one of the reasons

From Flickr by liber(the poet)

people out there took up arms in the first place. By 'out there' . . . Babi meant the tribal areas, especially the Pashtun regions in the south or in the east near the Pakistani border, where women were rarely seen on the streets and only then in burqa and accompanied by men. He meant those regions where men who lived by ancient tribal laws had rebelled against the communists and their decrees to liberate women, to abolish forced marriage, to raise the minimum marriage age to sixteen for girls. There, men saw it as an insult to their centuries-old tradition, Babi said, to be told by the government—and a godless one at that—that their daughters had to leave home, attend school, and work alongside men.” (Hosseini 121)

This passage struck me as a powerful statement about how changeable a society can be if it loses sight of what is important. Before the Taliban, at least in the wealthier parts of Afghanistan, women were free. Not only that, they were respected, even treated as equals. When the Taliban commenced their reign, everything changed—women were not allowed to leave their homes without a male relative nor even laugh aloud in public, or they would be beaten. I think it has been difficult—or perhaps unimportant—for many ordinary Americans to keep track of all of these changes, all of these details. As one character notes in A Thousand Splendid Suns: “Not that they give a damn in America, mind you. What do they care that Pashtuns and Hazaras and Tajiks and Uzbeks are killing each other? How many Americans can even tell one from the other?” (Hosseini 190)

The seemingly distant world of the Middle East, and Afghanistan in particular, can often seem confusing, overwhelming, and even hopeless. But after reading Hosseini's gripping, heart-wrenching story, it is impossible to ignore the fact that people—men, women, and children just like you and me—are living these horrors every day. I encourage you to read A Thousand Splendid Suns. It may be fiction, but its message is true and will be true for all time: we are all brothers and sisters, and we all deserve happiness, even in impoverished rural towns and faraway deserts.

Hope-2o

I have some big news: on February 8, Global Giving announced that my video has raised nearly $30,000 for The Girl Effect! I was absolutely astounded when I heard about this, and as it turns out, another organization was pretty impressed as well. Hope-2o, whose mission is “to eliminate the use of plastic water bottles by giving every individual in the United States a stainless steel water bottle,” contacted me the other day about forming a partnership to raise funds for our causes. Hope-2o makes these awesome stainless steel water bottles to raise money for their own cause and another cause that they feel is important. When they heard about what It Only Takes a Girl is doing in support of The Girl Effect, they were interested.

Small disclaimer: several organizations and individuals have emailed me about supporting my cause, forming partnerships, working together, etc., which I think is incredible. However, what many of them did not realize is that It Only Takes a Girl is not actually a funds-collecting organization—it's just me, one girl. My own mission is to raise awareness, encourage donations, and urge volunteerism in support of girls and women around the world, but in fact I am just one girl.

That being said, I was thrilled at the prospect of creating customized water bottles with the “It Only Takes a Girl” logo on them and selling them to raise money for two causes I support: girls, and reducing the consumption of plastic water bottles. (I'm not sure if you saw my recent post on water bottles, but this is also an important issue to me.)

If you are reading this blog, I assume you are already interested in supporting organizations like The Girl Effect, the Worldwide Fistula Fund, Tostan, Girls Learn International, and others that work for the health and education of girls in the developing world. But now you can invest in girls and another important cause, preserving our health and the environment by eliminating plastic water bottles, at the same time. According to Hope-2o, “for every stainless steel water bottle used, we eliminate the use of approximately 180 plastic water bottles per year therefore reducing the serious environmental and health issues caused by plastic water bottles.” I strongly encourage you to purchase an amazing It Only Takes a Girl stainless steel water bottle and to encourage your friends to get some as well. And if you have time, take a moment to look at all these other amazing organizations that Hope-2o has partnered with.

Thank you for supporting our health, the environment, and girls everywhere.

Please, Please Read Half the Sky

I know I have been slacking lately on posting new blog entries. For that, I apologize. I have lots of important and fascinating topics to write about, I just need to find the time!
In the meantime, I would like to make a short post about New York Times journalist Nick Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn's book, Half the Sky. Nick Kristof is an incredible human rights activist and journalist, and he is my personal hero. You can follow him on Facebook here and Twitter here (I know I do!).

I have been reading Half the Sky for a few weeks now (I am a painfully slow reader), and I absolutely devour every page. My friends and family like to poke fun at me sometimes because while I read it, I sometimes take out my highlighter and highlight in my book (I'm a nerd, what can I say). Today I would like to share with you a few of my favorite passages from this masterpiece. Enjoy, and learn something new.

"Many of the stories in this book are wrenching, but keep in mind this central truth: Women aren't the problem but the solution. The plight of girls is no more a tragedy than an opportunity." (xviii)

"Women aged fifteen through forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence that from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined." (61)

"This is not a tidy world of tyrannical men and victimized women, but a messier realm of oppressive social customs adhered to by men and women alike." (69)

"They know that a woman humiliated [by being gang-raped] has no other recourse except suicide...They don't even need to use their weapons. Rape kills her."(70)

"Women came to her with their faces destroyed by acid attacks or with their noses chopped off--a traditional punishment for 'bad' or 'loose' women." (75)

"Of all the things that people do in the name of God, killing a girl because she doesn't bleed on her wedding night is among the most cruel." (81)

"She ended up in obstructed labor, with the baby stuck inside her birth passage. After seven days, Mahabouba fell unconscious, and at that point someone summoned a birth attendant. By then the baby had been wedged there for so long that the tissues between the baby's head and Mahabouba's pelvis had lost circulation and rotted away. When Mahabouba recovered consciousness, she found that the baby was dead and that she had no control over her bladder or bowels. She also couldn't walk or even stand, a consequence of nerve damage that is a frequent by-product of fistula." (94)

(If this description of obstructed labor and obstetric fistula horrified you as much as it did me, please visit The Fistula Foundation website.)

"Right now the amount we Americans spend on maternal health is equivalent to less than one twentieth of 1 percent of the amount we spend on our military." (98)

From Flickr by J McDowell 

"It was considered undesirable to teach a girl to read and write. There were no schools for girls, because if girls are educated then they grow up to talk about genitals." (123)

"Somali superstition holds that burning a baby on the chest will prevent tuberculosis." (128) (THIS is why education is important!)

"Whatever one thinks of abortion, it's tragic that up to 40 percent of all pregnancies globally are unplanned or unwanted--and that almost half of those result in induced abortions." (134)

"AIDS is often a disease of gender inequality." (138)

"Forty women every minute seek unsafe abortions." (148)

"During the Taliban era, if a woman went to market and showed an inch of flesh, she would have been flogged; now, she's raped." (150)

"'You educate a boy, and you're educating and individual,' Greg [Mortenson] says, quoting an African proverb. "You educate a girl, and you're educating an entire village." (161)

"Several studies suggest that when women gain control over spending, less family money is devoted to instant gratification and more for education and starting small businesses." (192)

"If we believe firmly in certain values, such as the equality of all human beings regardless of color or gender, then we should not be afraid to stand up for them; it would not be feckless to defer to slavery, torture, foot-binding, honor killings, or genital cutting just because we believe in respecting other faiths or cultures." (207)

A woman who was subject to the Chinese practice of foot-binding. From Flickr by DrJohnBullas

I didn't start my highlighting until later in the book, so I don't really have many passages from the early chapters on human trafficking and sex slavery. These chapters are perhaps the most horrifying, and I was brought to tears on nearly every page.

If you want to be a good and educated citizen of the world, I strongly recommend that you read Half the Sky. I don't think I am exaggerating when I say it can change your life, or at least your outlook on life.

The Argument Against Bottled Water

As an average American citizen, I recognize that I am often somewhat wasteful. Living in a medium-sized city in a first world country means I often take for granted money and resources that are so precious to less fortunate people around the world. I try my best to conserve resources and preserve our environment, but I'll be the first to admit that it is difficult, and I'm nowhere near perfect. However, there is one particularly wasteful habit I refuse to develop: drinking bottled water. The manufacture and consumption of bottled water wastes money and resources, and it is harmful not only to our environment, but to our own health as well.

From Flickr by stevendepolo

Fact: bottled water is less regulated than tap water. This means that while the manufacturers of tap water are required by law to provide their source, bottled water producers are not. While tap water is strictly tested for traces of the E. coli bacteria, bottled water is not. While tap water distributors must produce a quality report, the quality of bottled water is largely a mystery. Because commercially bottled water frequently does not cross state lines, about 70% is not subject to FDA testing or regulation. This blatant lack of supervision over such an unfortunately popular product could have serious implications for human health. Bacteria could be present in unhealthy amounts in such an unregulated item, and the plastic bottles may leach chemicals into the water if reused or left in the heat. Although this risk is uncertain and evidence of serious negative effects has not yet been officially uncovered, drinking water from the tap is a safer, if slightly less convenient, way to hydrate our bodies.

Not only is our health threatened by bottled water, but our wallets are in danger as well. Bottled water is ten thousand times more expensive than tap water. Let me repeat that: ten thousand times more expensive. In the United States especially, municipal water supplies are very cheap for the consumer. Bottled water, on the other hand, is enormously expensive. We—the consumer—aren't paying for the water itself when we hand over one, two, even three dollars for that seemingly innocent bottle of H2O—we are paying for the seventeen million barrels of oil used each year to produce the plastic, the paper of the wrapper, and even the cardboard packaging for bottled water. In fact, 40% of bottled water comes straight from the tap, making it virtually free for the producer. All they have to do is wrap it up and charge the uninformed masses for the expensive waste and pollution they have generated.

From Flickr by KNOW MALTA by Peter Grima

Such profligate behavior as this has serious consequences for our environment. Only one in five plastic water bottles is recycled. The other four are simply thrown away—that is, if they even make it to a garbage can. Bottled water is responsible for 1.5 million tons of plastic waste every year, much of which ends up in the ocean. In conjunction with plastic grocery bags, plastic water bottles have created an enormous floating trash island in the Pacific Ocean—and it is only growing. However, pollution to the land and ocean is not even the half of it. The process of bottling water requires three times more water than is actually in the final product, and freshwater is a dwindling resource. Only 2% of the world's water is freshwater, and most of that is trapped in glaciers. In addition, oil and other fossil fuels are wasted in the manufacturing of bottled water. Not only are we running out of fossil fuels—a nonrenewable resource—but burning this fuel is also detrimental to the environment. The combustion of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, which collects in the troposphere and increases the greenhouse effect, leading to the well-known phenomenon of global warming. With so many other sources—such as motor vehicles, industrial activity, and agriculture— advancing this environmental disaster, it seems idiotic to further contribute to greenhouse gas emissions for something as worthless and wasteful as bottled water.

Is the convenience of a portable and disposable container of hydration worth the high health, financial, and environmental costs? I don't think so. To me, the choice is obvious: purchase a sturdy metal or plastic water bottle and fill it with tap water before you leave the house in the morning. You can refill it at school from the water fountains or at work from the water coolers. You really only have to use it a few times before it pays for itself. I know there are much more serious and pressing issues out there than the good ole bottled water vs. water bottles debate, but when it comes to preserving and protecting our planet, every little bit counts. In the words of an ancient Native American proverb: "Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children."

Works Cited

Baskind, Chris. "5 reasons not to drink bottled water | MNN - Mother Nature Network." Environmental News and Information | MNN - Mother Nature Network. Mother Nature Network, 15 Mar. 2010. Web. 17 Jan. 2011. <http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/stories/5-reasons-not-to-drink-bottled-water>.

"The Facts About Bottled Water." Online Education : Colleges, Universities, Schools, Courses, & Degrees. Online Education, n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2011. <http://www.onlineeducation.net/bottled_water>.

The Boy in the Yellow Shirt

When I was fifteen, I participated in a three-week service and language program in Costa Rica with the teen travel organization WestCoast Connection. I needed something to do with my summer, and I was interested in learning some Spanish and doing some community service. This trip seemed like a great opportunity.

I taught some local girls simple origami
at a day camp we set up and ran.

During the first two weeks of the trip, we took Spanish classes on weekday mornings and often worked on service projects in the afternoons. Some of these projects included painting and weeding an impoverished elementary school, helping local coffee farmers with their harvest, and running a day camp for the children of the community. They were simple and satisfying.

In the third week, however, we met Gail. Known as “Giselle” by the ticos (the affectionately self-deprecating term native Costa Ricans use to describe themselves) who can't pronounce her American name, this fifty-something-year-old woman described to us her life and work in Costa Rica over the last three decades. She began her efforts alone, but she has now accumulated a team of nearly 1500 volunteers dedicated to improving living conditions in the poorest areas of the country. She told us that her mission wasn't to give charity to the ticos, but instead to “help them help themselves”—in other words, provide a base of support from which they can build themselves up and improve their own lives. We were to volunteer with her over the next few days in the small shanty town La Carpio. Although her words were impassioned and her story inspiring, I had little idea at the time of what an amazing impact this small village would have on me.

We arrived at La Carpio by van on a hot July morning, and our very first greeting was from a small boy of maybe eleven or twelve years. Standing barefoot on the side of the road, he flipped us off. Many of the kids in the van laughed. I was horrified. I felt at once indignant and humiliated. Here we were in a foreign country, unpaid and of our own free will, to help this boy and the families in his community to have better lives and more promising futures. Why did he treat us like this? How could we possibly deserve it? This insult still stinging, I saw our group through the boy’s eyes. To him, we were a van full of privileged, white gringos with shoes and sunglasses who were invading his home and imposing our values and wealth on his community to make ourselves feel better. Although he didn't speak our language, this boy raised in the slums clearly communicated his bitterness and resentment with one finger.

We exited the van and stood uncomfortably on the side of the road, waiting for Gail to arrive and escort us to our project. After brief greetings and minimal discussion, she began to lead us through La Carpio. Feces and emaciated dogs littered the streets, and the smell of animal or human waste pervaded the air. The houses (if they could really be called that) were one-room structures built out of sheet metal and concrete, with no visible plumbing or electricity. Families of six, seven, even eight or nine, lived crowded together in these dismal homes. I avoided looking at the residents of the village. Being in this town made me feel nervous, uncomfortable, and even frightened. And so ashamed that I did. But I couldn’t help it, could I?

After walking maybe ten minutes, we witnessed the local police taking three small children away from their mother. The sobbing woman ran into Gail’s arms and wept. As our party left her behind, Gail explained that the woman could not care for her children, and therefore could not keep them.

Some kids at the daycare center

As we walked, my discomfort mounted. Tired-looking women sat under small vendor stands. Shabbily clothed men watched us pass. I was amazed how Gail calmly smiled and talked to anyone we passed on the street. When I believed I might actually start crying from an odd array of unpleasant emotions, we reached the daycare that Gail’s organization founded and runs for the children of the town. When we stepped into the quaint blue building, it was as though the dirty, sad life of the slum town was miles away. Children—from infants to elementary-age—were sitting in a circle while a young American volunteer talked to them in Spanish about food proportions. Gail invited half of us to join the children’s circle, while the other half would leave to build beds for local families. I stayed with the children. Immediately when I sat down, a young girl, maybe six, sat in my lap, and another beside me took my hand. We spent several hours coloring food pyramids, putting together puzzles, and molding Play-Doh. While we were outside coloring on the street with chalk, the other half of our group returned. Some switched groups, going from daycare work to bed construction or vice versa. I chose to stay with the kids.

As we walked through La Carpio, these boys saw us and
ran together to pose for "¡Una foto, una foto por favor!"

Soon after, several young boys showed up at the daycare, asking us to join them in a game of futbol. Thinking of the young boy we met upon our arrival, I hesitated. However, these boys were so friendly and inviting that I soon joined in the game. Soccer is a very popular pastime in Costa Rica, and in a village where a kid doesn't have much more than a soccer ball for entertainment, it was no surprise that these boys’ deftness and skill with the ball was astounding. Our teams were split with an even mixture of ticos and gringos on each, but the most active players of the game were the two team captains, both La Carpio boys. The captain of my team was maybe twelve. He was one of the oldest boys and wore a bright yellow shirt. I am not embarrassed to admit that I can be quite a klutz sometimes, and coordination and agility are not two of the skills that I can boast. But every time I touched the ball, no matter how awkward a kick or in what direction, that yellow-shirted boy congratulated me with touching sincerity and encouragement, “¡Bueno, bueno chica!” That boy’s—my captain’s—genuine praise and congratulation moved me deeply. I have so much in my life that he lacks—three meals a day, a stable education, daily showers, even a room of my own and a closet of clothes. This one thing, this unique talent with the soccer ball—something he has that I don't—he shared with me.

When it was time for us to depart, the captain of the other team shook my hand, and my yellow-shirted captain and I bumped fists. It was such an honor to feel accepted by these boys. For that amazing soccer game, our ethnic, economic, and language differences didn't matter at all.

The town we walked out of was entirely different from the one we entered. Although unpleasant aromas and skinny stray dogs still filled the streets, the people were no longer frightening, or even very sad. They were just...people.

This is a sweet baby girl who colored on the sidewalk with me.

But it wasn't the town that was different. Not really. Watching the dirty and even bruised children at the daycare give thanks and say a prayer for a small snack of pineapples, having them hold my hands and kiss my cheeks, feeling the pride of being congratulated in a foreign language by a skinny boy in a yellow shirt for kicking a decrepit ball a few feet towards our own goal—it was really me who was changed. The people of La Carpio were no longer frightening because I was no longer scared. I wasn't afraid of the unfamiliar, or of the new, or of people simply because they were poor, or dirty, or ticos.

We volunteered at La Carpio twice more that week. I helped out at the daycare again and even got to build beds for local families. Each time after we had completed our day’s work, the women of La Carpio prepared for us a lovely meal of rice, chicken, and salad. I couldn't help but wonder if they'd ever treat themselves to such a feast. And each time we visited the daycare, I saw my team captain lingering with his friends in the nearby street. He was still in the same yellow shirt, still holding a soccer ball, and he was still smiling.

(If you are interested in helping Gail to help the ticos to help themselves...please visit http://www.crhf.org/donate.html and make a donation. Every little bit helps!)