yeah. i identify with that freewheeling attitude and reality you are basking in right now - post high school bliss was so blissful - i wait eagerly for post college bliss to envelop me. about that: i got word that i might be able to finish my last needed class this summer as an independent study. yeah! i could be free as the wind come sept 05 - oh my god. that is such an idea that sparks such a feeling that lets me feel so goddam liberated - all my peers are worried about jobs and the rat race and im like hello! freedom! what are you doing? sigh, oh well. im going to have tea and watch the clouds and ponder the best way for me to advance myself as a human being. sigh. and i think that will be language learning and adventure for me. its a toss up between spanish and mandarin right now - read: its a toss up between living in china or living in south/central america or mexico.

aye that feeling of bliss. thank you for opening that door for me.

yeah - there is no way to grasp the ignorance that we, westerners the so called developed/civilized peoples have towards the sufferings of others.

like - 80000 - i knew the big global and africa numbers and i had looked at the numbers for ghana when working on the funding proposal - but the big numbers mask the horror of it because we cannot grasp big numbers - like picture 80000 people? can you? picture them dead or just picture a hundred people dead - its like woah and then the active desensitization process of the media - ugh - we get so immune and walking around india seeing the poverty and abuse/exploitation that is here and seeing so much of it - you cant really grasp it at some point - and its just like yeah another nude starving child, another pair of kids digging through the heaping garbage piles, another beggar with missing limbs, another kid with horrible scars - its overwhelming and you dont give money to beggars. cause it encourages begging and you dont want that cause you want the streets to be clean, you dont want your eyes offended by the sight of beggars. so you dont pay them and hope tomorrow they wont be there.

and its such a shitty cycle. and you know that something must be done but you arent sure what at all to do.

so going to ghana will be a bunch of things - an adventure, another stamp & visa in my passport, an exercise in futilty, a way to enjoy my privilege, a way to promote non-paternalistic solidarity and paternalistic ngo practices, and a way to make friends and see beauty in the world. and other things i cant identify right now . but no matter what happens it is problematic and yeah yeah everything is problematic but when we continue shit like this adventure the main focus of which is on building a school library which ghanaians are totally capable of doing without us and we are taking away employment, and slowing the process of construction. so yeah, if the focus was exclusively on fair trade and handing out condoms then maybe that would help but this is a piss in the bucket.

and im still going to do it cause i cant not coming from the vast pool of privilege i do come from.

ok this has gone on long enough im off to go breathe in the deep night air and relax before dinner.

ai
demetrius