Thursday, 09 July 2009

• Eat Some Breakfast, Then Change the World... Adopt and Orphan

  
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  I am going to adopt an orphan. ;D

  Yeah yeah, I know that as a negligent, low-earning, college student, it's hardly my business to fly some motherless African child thousands of miles from his home, lose him at the airport, feed him junkfood until he's fat, and teach him to shout naughty words in a language he doesnt yet understand.

  ... For as amusing as that sounds, it would just be immoral, and quite frowned upon, I'm sure you'd all agree?? ;)

  So that's not exactly what I've got in mind. !
  
  Besides, I can just imagine my father's face if I were to burst into the lounge oneday, all "LOOK WHAT I'VE GOT! ISNT HE CUTE?! I'VE DONE HIS HAIR ALL FUNNY! AND AM GONNA FEED HIM ICECREAM UNTIL HE'S SICK ... HE CAN SLEEP AT THE FOOT OF MY BED AND FOLD ALL MY CLOTHES FOR ME! THIS IS THE BEST IDEA I EVER HAD. EVER!"

  Yes, Daddy Adams would probably keep the child and ship me back to the Sudan where I'd be forced to shuffle about in a loin cloth before providing a hungry lion with it's dinner. Never a good look! So there'll be none of this Angelina Jolie/Madonna orphan-saving philanthropy from The L0ki, just yet.

  BUT, a few friends of mine have started Sponsoring orphans, through a scheme called Plan. You can view their website by clicking HERE. It sounds SO cool that I really really wanna give it a go.

  My friend Simon started the 'fad' (as my girlfriend calls it!). In the last year he's adopted two orphans through Plan. He pays £24 a month (that's around 450) and that goes towards the children's education, health, nutrition and even clothing. He said that he used to pay £25 a month for his gym membership, but he never used it, so decided to inject the money into a more worthwhile cause. He's now got a 10-year-old Ecuadorian boy, and an 8 year old little girl from Ghana. He sends them sweets and colouring pencils and photos and small toys, and they write him letters and draw him pictures and tell him about their lives. It's all so very adorable!

  And then? Our friend Matt came into work the other day with photos of and letters from his new orphan, a little girl from the Carribbean who likes poetry and pretty colours and swimming in the sea. She is so cute! "Mine's the best!" He says, "She has fourteen brothers and sisters. And her mother is only 30!!"
  "No. Mine's better! She has no shoes, and has to walk 3 hours a day to find water!" Simon will rebuke.

  AND I WANT ONE! "Where is MINE?!" I ask! They only cost 12 pounds a month each. I'd only spend that 12 pounds on clothes I'll never wear, or on a barrel of beer, or something equally as irrelevant. And as much as it pains me to say so, A CHILD'S FUTURE IS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN ALCOHOL OR KHAKI SHORTS, or whatever else I'd find myself binging on!!
  So last week? I applied for a sponsor kit.

  My girlfriend thinks it is a very silly idea. "They're not fashion accesories. You're not meant to show them off to your friends and argue over whose is best." She chides. But personally I think that there are far worse things that a group of spoiled English boys could spend their wages on. So what if we've injected a bit of healthy competition into our philanthropy? At least we're doing something beneficial! We're attempting to save the world one-child-at-a-time, godammit!

  "Besides, you'll get an ugly one with no teeth, and you'll hate it." The girlfriend says. How could my own girlfriend think me so SHALLOW? She doesn't know that I'd dislike an unattractive child!! I COULD SO LOVE A TOOTHLESS CHILD!! I know I could! I've got a LOT of love to give!! ...As women everywhere have often realised. :-/ It's not my fault I was born with such compassion and a need to give, OK!?

  I received my sponsor form in the mail this morning. I'm so excited! I might fill it in this evening. You get to choose whether you want a boy or girl, and what geographical location you'd prefer them to be from.

  I've given it some thought, and I definitely want a little boy. I mean, I've already got a daughter, and besides there are ENOUGH women in my life right now, as I'm sure you'll all agree.
  So I want a little boy. Preferably from South-East-Asia. Somewhere like Cambodia or Vietnam.

  I imagine he will have lots of lovely jet black hair and an enquiring mind, and very soulful dark eyes that say "Yes, I am very poor. But I am very strong and resilient and bright and loving and in need of your 12 pounds a month." I want a proper diamond in the rough!! Like Disney's Aladdin. But smaller, and with less of the stealing loaves of bread mylarky. I'm not so keen on the idea of sponsering a criminal.

  And I will invite him to come visit me when he is all very clever and grown, and I am a rich 30-something Business Man, and we shall discuss how wonderful it was of me to send him money every month when he was a child, and with tears in my eyes I shall say "It's ok dude. I'm just sorry there wasn't more I could do to help, that's all." And we shall drink tea, and embrace and be so thankful to each other. And maybe you'll read all about it in The Daily Mail, or The Sun, or somewhere equally as sensationalist.
  Fuck. I am letting my imagination run away with me again, arent I? But it's all for a good cause!! ;D
  
  "Ryan you can't just demand for the kid from Miss Saigon. The agency will give you what child they have got!" The girlfriend remarked. I think she is just jealous that I might one day love this child more than I love her, and she is envious that she can't have a heart as big as mine, because I want to help the third world, and she won't even buy fair trade chocolate bars because they are 'over-priced and silly'. I'll show her how wonderfully charitable and giving I can be!!

  Anyway. The point of this entry was not to boast about how excited I am about my soon-to-be-sponsor-son, who is possibly right now sat paddling his malnourished and shoeless litle legs into some dirty stream in the middle of Hanoi, with no idea that some random westerner has just fallen madly in love with him. But I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I could inspire just a handul of my readers to think about doing the same thing, then I would be doing the world a lot of good. 

  So guys, please please please go check out http://www.plan-uk.org/. It's all very legitimiate and geniune, my friend Simon hasn't had any problems with them since he started with them a year ago. I know it's a British site, but I'm sure there are equally as good American/ Australian/Whatever ones out there. And then we could all discuss how awesome are sponsered children are with each other. And feel genuinely smug about having done something half decent for a change. 
  

  Just give it a thought! 

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