Harvey Gamage

The days spent volunteering at the orphanage for stateless children were very enlightening and opened my eyes a little more to some important aspects of life. First, upon starting work the first day I quickly came to notice that the children were very eager to step in and help. Here were kids who were of a different ethnicity, spoke a different language, had never seen us before and whose lives so far have been far from easy. Not only did they step in and help they clearly loved doing so. Secondly, it often appears that people in the USA and other well-developed nations have an obsession with material goods. Most of what we do tends to revolve around the trading, acquiring, and consuming of such goods. Lots of us also tend to believe that these interactions with material goods will make us happy. Therefore, it was pretty enlightening to see the kids at the orphanage very happy despite the fact that they have almost next to nothing. I believe it is because they have grown up with simply each other and their community around them. Their happiness seems to stem from simply being with the people they enjoy and having interactions with them. I feel that if maybe everyone lived a little more like that it would be a valuable lesson learned.
-Frank