Just some angst going on inside my head these days. I read about projects in the DR that are truly helping the people there. Projects like the fundación Alta Gracia that Julia Alvarez helped to set up that promotes agricultural sustainability while providing work for farmers in the central highlands.(http://www.cafealtagracia.com/links.html) and the Institute for Integrative Medicine (http://integrativedev.interactivemedialab.com/Home.aspx) whose projects include one in which recycled grocery bags are crocheted into handbags and whose profits help to feed and educated dominican children (wow, that was a long and perhaps not even run-on sentence). And I wonder if our little camp is doing any good. I mean for two weeks we provide 20 or so children with an education that they wouldn't otherwise get. We talk to them about their community and environment in an attempt to instill in them a (what's the word?) sensibility about the way they co-exist. But can we actually accomplish this goal in two weeks? Do our actions result in any change whatsoever?
Tanya, forever the optimist, will say that of course we are doing good. That we are providing these children with a positive learning experience; one which, even if it doesn't lead to permanent, visible change, will nonetheless affect these children. How, I ask? But I guess I know that the answer is the same as how I impact my math students here in Brookline, right?
Still... I think we should think bigger. Or maybe attach ourselves to one of the organizations that is already doing great work in the D.R. I don't know, I guess I always feel some angst as we pass the midpoint of the summer, regardless of what I'm doing.