To begin, a shout out to Christi and Kitty who both sent awesome packages around early September- thanks guys! I am going to enjoy my coffee and beef jerky, maybe at the same time, who knows, I'm crazy.

Also, to all my friends living in DC, I am seriously jealous that you get to got to the Rally to Restore Sanity. Wish I could go- even though when people try to explain the current American political scene to me over the phone, I get confused and get a headache.

Finally, congratulations to Chris, who is leaving for China soon. For those of you who don't know, my older brother Matt now lives in China with his new wife (yay!), and my little brother Chris is also going to go there to teach, and maybe also to find a wife- that remains to be seen. So, for anyone who was born between the years 1984-1988, get ready for my mom to empty-nest all over you, because she isn't going to have any kids in America soon. Just kidding mom, don't get mad.

My week has been ok, it's getting really hot, but the library seems to always be a good 10-20 degrees cooler than the outside, so I've been in there a lot, as usual. The acting ambassador is slated to visit my school this upcoming week on Thursday, which should be cool- I'm a little nervous about it actually, my head teacher wanted to have a big party for her, which wouldn't be good, because she just wants to see a normal school day, and I've also had some conversations with people who seem to think that maybe she'll come and build us a laboratory, which she isn't going to do, since the woman isn't Oprah, and that isn't the point of the visit. Plus, I've been working for the past year to try to get the idea across that nobody is going to just build us anything, and that we have to use the resources we have. We had a library that was being eaten by termites, and a bunch of computers in boxes under a thick layer of dust when I came here- and if you'd asked anyone back then what we most needed, they'd have said computers or more books- come to find out we actually had some nice books and passable computers, we just needed to use them. Now we're working on renovating one of our old classrooms to use as a laboratory, so we're cleaning old lab equipment and using locally available resources to build storage and work places. I think that this is actually better than just having someone give us a lab, personally, but it is like pulling teeth to get anything done. Have you ever read that book 'if you give a mouse a cookie'?, I'm pretty sure the guy who wrote that worked in a developing school somewhere.

I guess that's the problem, isn't it? What the community wants isn't what the donor wants to give, and both could be completely different from what the community really needs. I think it is all very sticky- people have the best of intentions when they come out here, but who knows if their projects are going to work? I think that I want to study education and international development in grad school- maybe I'll end up at American University like the rest of Peace Corps. That would be nice, maybe then I could make it to the next Stewart/Colbert rally- September 2012? Anyone?