..Peace Corps & Poverty..

Today is the 2 month mark from when I arrived in China. I can't believe how quickly it has gone, and at the same point, how it feels like we have been settled to a lifestyle here for awhile. I love it. I am so glad that I have gotten the opportunity to come to China and experience and take part in such a different, unique and enticing culture. I am 1/3 of the way through this adventure, and, it just seems like the rest of the time is going to go by far too quickly!

A few days before I left for China, I submitted my Peace Corps application. Earlier this week, I had a phone interview with a Peace Corps Rep, and it went really well. He said that we will start to discuss placement positions, positions which could start as early as October of this year to March of 2010...However, recently, I have been really considering and researching staying in China for another year after I finish this internship. It seems, that it would be useful to stay in China and continue to study the language and get to know the culture...rather than studying Chinese and living here for 6 months and then just leaving, and in a sense, leaving all I have learned behind. All that to be said, even though making decisions is hard, I am glad to have the opportunity and don't yet have to make a final decision or worry about that.

Last night, Shaun and I did a poverty simulation for one of our culture classes. We divided up the students into different continent groups and gave them food (candy) and money (the Chinese equivalent to 10c pieces). The population, food, and money of each continent was representative to how it is in the world. The students could then trade food and money, but of course, at a cost. The purpose of the exercise was to show the reality of the world, that not everyone has enough food or money for basic necessities in some continents, where in others, there is a surplus of both...and to transfer those resources, there are costs for our inefficiencies. The exercise went a lot better than we had expected, and even though the students were less interested in the reality of the situation, they all participated in trying to get enough food for each person on their continent.

With all of the events this week, I am learning, and realizing again, how much I miss working towards fighting poverty. I didn't think I would say this quite this soon, but I miss those classroom discussions where we would talk about economic differences that help/harm poverty, I miss reading about it, talking about it, and most of all, I am realizing again how this is what I get really passionate and excited about.