We are just an ordinary family with three girls. We live in Northern California. We love to travel. We think the best education we can afford our kids is to let them see the world and do a bit of good while traveling.
How we got involved in this project?
In December 2006 we traveled to Japan and Burma. As we planned out trip we got connected through a friend to a local travel agency Fascinating Land Travel in Rangoon. It was a stroke of luck as we had ideas and special wishes that we wanted to implement. Among other things we asked to include in our itinerary a visit to a local school or an orphanage so our kids could connect to the youth of the country. Mong Pay, the co-owner with Michael of the travel agency was excited to arrange a visit to an orphanage in his home town of Taunggyi, run by his kindergarten English teachers. As emails flew back and forth on the Internet highway more ideas formulated. We have previously visited a resettlement camp in Namibia and send soccer uniforms and balls to them. One of our high school daughters fundraised money to buy a generator for a remote indigenous village school when she went to Argentina to study Spanish. If we were to visit the orphanage we wanted to do something for he kids. What would they need most.?Everything, came the reply. Vitamins, school supplies, rice. Thus we started collecting and fundraising. In the end we brought in 4 duffel bags filled with 130 school bags filled with donated crayons, pens, soaps, shampoos, vitamins and chewing gum (In kids eyes gum was the best present!)
The visit to the orphanage was definitely the highlight of our trip. We arrived on Christmas morning and were welcomed by the shining faces of the kids, most of whom have never seen a foreigner (especially one as hairy as my husband or one with blue eyes and blond hair as one of our daughters) They sang songs to us and we distributed bags to each one of them. We shared lunch with them and played games with them. We were all fighting back tears when we climbed into our van to go shopping with the head teacher for supplies on her list. Our fundraised thousand bucks made for a plastic bag full of kyats, the local currency. We bought 1800 bricks and materials to build a water tank, blankets, pots and cooking oil. With the remaining money we purchased 3,5 tons of rice. It was an incredible feeling to be able to accomplish so much. It was the best shopping trip of our lives.
Our guide told us about another, Buddhist, orphanage and when we brought some of the extra school supplies and vitamins to them we found them in even bigger need. When we returned home, we couldn't forget those little faces. Whenever any of our friends were headed to Asia we encouraged them to visit Burma and "our orphanages". In 2007 three families traveled there and delivered more supplies to both orphanages as well as nearly $4000 to buy rice and other necessities.
While we feel this is a wonderful accomplishment we also realize it breeds dependency on charity and handouts. While charity is an important tenet of Buddhist and Christian philosophy we know that sustainability would be much more helpful. How could we get a reliable supply of food to our orphans? Two ideas came to mind. One was fundraising to buy a rice paddy and grow rice for them and the second to get them a flock of ducks so they can have eggs and their offspring, to eat and sell. This is how The Hungry Duckling came into existence.
