Apropriate Development

An article in the online New York Times today at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/04/us/04adopt.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp&o... called "Surge in Adoptions Raises Concern in Ethiopia" got me thinking about international adoption. It's a topic that I don't have a hard stance on though I do have some strong feelings. I dislike hearing about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's many international adoptions. I think the worst when I hear about these celebrities and make assumptions about how they, or their nannies, are raising their kids when I don't really know. But I think what frustrates me the most is the fanfare in which it is done. I also wish they and others would adopt the many American children who aren't being adopted, who are aging out of the foster care system without families and who are more likely to go to jail or be homeless because of it.

I am not sure how I feel about Oprah's school in South Africa. She's gotten lots of publicity for it, and I have held off writing about it until I could come to some conclusion, but I still haven't been able to. When I watched a story about it during primetime television, I was moved. And when I caught part of one of the episodes of her talk show telling about the school and the girls, I again was moved. But something continued to make me cautious. I haven't figured out what it is, but my RPCV friend Deidre sent me a link to an article in the Jamaica Gleaner yesterday. Give it a read if you have time: http://www.jamaicagleaner.com/gleaner/20070529/news/news7.html The author talks briefly about how the white residents of the town are happy to have the school and think it's a good asset to the town, while a couple of black men sitting on the side of the road and smoking ganja felt otherwise. They felt that no one local benefited because all jobs were given to outsiders.

I was pointed today to a story on the appropriateness of a small Indian village having its own web site. The town doesn't have an internet connection yet, but it has a web site of its own. Read the story written by Shailaja Neelakantan at http://gigaom.com/2006/08/14/indian-villages-internet-and-crazy-headline.... Maybe the town doesn't have an internet connection, and maybe the people of the community have aspirations for the web site and use of the internet far beyond what they are able to do now, but aren't aspirations the beginning of development. And as I have seen, often a web site isn't for the person writing the web site about the little village, but for the thinker, the traveler, the researcher, the person interested in what's going on back in his little village. Just because it doesn't make sense to you, doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.

I watched a National Geographic short segment last night on China's One Child policy. We watched it off the internet so I am not sure of the production or airing date, but I am sure you could find it if you wanted to. It was really interesting and as usual, I started thinking. What sparked more of a debate in me and maybe even a pessimistic streak (yes, I do have one of those too!) was that the narrarator said that when the policy was implemented that no one thought of these long term effects that are now coming to fruition like more violence, women being kidnapped for marriages, many baby girls being killed, and many men not being able to find wives. I find it highly unlikely that no one thought forward about these things. I am sure someone did and someone posed all of the possibilities, but the benefits outweighed the possible negatives, or so they felt at the time.

It's not the Grameen Bank, but I asked Monica Myers to tell us about how a Partna is done in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica.