Mistakes in Aid and Development (in Africa): Wanting to help, but making things worse
I did something this last week that I immediately regretted and continue to feel bad about – wanting to help but honestly feeling as if the situation was worse after my arrival than before.
I’m asking for your thoughts in what I could have done differently.
Thinking about it, I have started to see the experience as […]
Being in Africa, and reading about so much corruption, I reflected again on meeting Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday.
Time magazine (in their July issue) did a cover story on 8 lessons from his leadership principles. Coming across an interesting book in the Amsterdam airport about the history of Africa deepened […]
I wonder if anything has more impact on our future than the questions we ask?
First, if we take it on more of a micro-level, imagine going into any random meeting. You will see things differently and have a different experience if you are asking “How can I get out of this meeting as quickly as […]
Welcome to Uganda: interesting sights and funny signs in Kampala
I am here now getting all the last minute details organized for the upcoming international conference and workshop on Technology for Innovation and Education in Developing Countries (TEDC 2008). Just for fun, here are some of the interesting images that jumped out at me today while walking the streets of Kampala, Uganda…
What if you […]
America’s Greatness: It Has Never Really Been Politics
Everywhere I go, I am surprised how much people all over the world know about the U.S.
• When I was in Russia a couple weeks ago, a young man came up to me and asked me if I was from the US. Then he began to ask me all kinds of questions about the housing market […]
Most of us have been lucky enough to have had at least one great teacher enter our lives who somehow resonates with us and who changes the way that we look at ourselves and the world - awakening us from a sleep we did not know we were in.
Dr. Dillon K. Inouye, who passed […]
The bones of 5 million: the underside of Paris
Yesterday, I met a good friend at the Eiffel Tower, and we spent the day visiting some of the main attractions above ground in Paris (Notre Dame, Victory Arch, Louve, Angelina’s chocolate shop on, etc) – and enjoyed some of the vibrant life that filled the streets.
For a section of the day, however, we […]
How good I am at learning Finnish
I have tried to maximize my time in Finland by learning as much Finnish as I can. Some people said that they were impressed by how fast I was learning it, so I started to be impressed by myself too!
I even booked an airline ticket on a Finnish-only language website to France (for a […]
Games people play in different countries and cultures
I would sometime like to do a study on games people play in different cultures and countries.
Going to St. Petersburg this last weekend, we joked about a ‘Russian game’ called the “Everybody get down!”-game - and how this man on the bus didn’t learn how to play it very well…
(sometime ask me more about it […]
Why would you want to be a Buddhist monk?
Early I had a blog entry about Catholic monks. Now I had the opportunity to ask the above question to two Thai Buddhist monks who were visiting Joensuu for a few days. I spoke with them briefly before a couple of meditation sessions that my good friend Antony invited me to (which they kind […]