Devs 310

I had to do the feature for this week's Xaverian Weekly. The two-page spread thing in the middle. I had to do it for Immersion Service Learning to showcase these experiences before the application's deadline next Thursday.

So last Wednesday, I went in town, grabbed a coffee and a loaf of jalapeno cheddar, got to Immaculata at 1:30 p.m., and worked non-stop on the feature until 12:30 a.m. I ate the loaf of bread and about 5 baby mars bars and probably 4 cups of tea.

And it looks really good. I formatted it and everything so that the folks at the Xav simply have to upload one photo for the two-page spread. Hopefully they dig how much work I put into it and how little they have to put into it - they ditched the weekly Service Learning articles this year, but if we can be a good working partner, maybe we can still maintain some good ties.

Marla and Iris were impressed with my work.

Just a point to bring out of this... What the hell does a Western person bring by doing international development? Put all the pretentiousness and guilt-ridding and neoimperialism aside for the breifest of moments - sometimes there's a skill that can be wonderfully applied in the most unlikely of ways. And this isn't just a Western phenomenon, it's among everyone really... but it's still there.

Buuuuut I'm sure if I were with an NGO in Tanzania I wouldn't be working for a company who has a well-functioning computer with an up-to-date version of Microsoft Publisher to do an article for a newspaper for a institution of higher education... so it's all relative I suppose.

By the way, you're going to love it, Peter. "Brown babies" galore.