Sat 6 Oct 2007
Hoping to Make Ourselves Useful
Posted by Shanna under Uncategorized
[4] Comments
While it goes without saying that we’re loving every minute of our luxurious hotel stays and our incredible meals, we haven’t forgotten that one of our goals for this year of travel is to spend a significant amount of time doing community service work. Internet research has uncovered some very viable service options, but we’re still in search of some reputable places to lend a hand–far too many websites offer the opportunity to assist “Real, Live, Impoverished Asian People” if only we’re willing to pay $300 a day to do so…
We head to China in less than a week. We plan to spend about six weeks there, traveling around the country, and we would really like to do some volunteer work. Here’s where we’re hoping that someone reading this knows someone (who knows someone who knows someone) who can point us in the direction of a good Chinese service project. And, if you know of a good project someplace else along our planned travel route, we’re all ears. This past month has been an amazing reminder of how lucky we are to be traveling like this, so now it’s time to switch gears a bit to start trying to be of some service.Â
Great pics, Derek. If you go in the “P” mode on your camera and hit “Menu”, go to the “camera 2” spot. Hit the set button and arrow down to the “Parameters” spot and hit the set button again. If you hit the set button again, you can use your up and down arrow button to go to black & white, or “set 1”, “set 2” and so on. Go to “set 1” and hit the set button again. Whew!!!! Following me?
scroll down to the saturation level and increase it. Just remember that it will stay on that setting until you change it back (or go to one of the pre-settings like portrait or sports…)
check this out, guys…not sure if it will help or not.
http://www.crossculturalsolutions.org/where_you_can_go/china/default.asp?siteID=google_volunteer_china&_kk=4892810e-580f-4c79-ace5-79a3856df8b2&_kt=738801606&gclid=CNKTzsTd_44CFRqWGgodg36M3A
Hi! If you are still looking for a way to be useful in China, I have a heartfelt suggestion. My 4 year old niece, Maggie, was adopted from an orphanage in the Guang Dong province in China, which I believe is in the southernmost part of the country. I know from conversations with Rusty and LeAnne that the orphanages are lacking many basic comforts. The babies sleep on boards in the cribs, and the orphanages are usually cold and clothing scarce. If you all would be interested in putting together a care package to take to one of the orphanages, we could arrange to send you some money and I am sure that Rusty and LeAnne would do the same. It would be amazing if we could coordinate this with the orphanage Maggie was adopted from. Rusty and LeAnne were not allowed to visit the orphanage at the time of her adoption, but maybe they would allow you two to deliver a care package. Please consider this, and let me know if this interests you, and I will get more specific information.
My boyfriend and I recently came back from a 7 month trip around the world, and reading your blog makes me want to go back. You probably already know this, but you’re going to have the trip of a lifetime. Some of the places that we went that are on your itinerary include Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and India. If you’re looking for suggestions check our blog out at http://www.ghidinelli.com/go
The main point of this comment is to let you know of some great places to volunteer in Cambodia. Of all the places we went, the Cambodians touched my heart the most. They have had such travesties committed against them, yet they are a very happy, friendly people. When you go to Siem Reap to check out Angkor Wat, be sure to spend a couple of extra days to do some volunteering. We stayed at a great inn called Earthwalkers. It was built by some people from Norway who wanted to give back to the community. Everything they do there is with the purpose of giving back. Their site is http://www.earthwalkers.no And you can find lots of volunteer activities there. We spent a day building water filters for local villages with the Trailblazer Foundation. You can find them at http://www.thetrailblazerfoundation.org/
Good luck and have a wonderful time!