Imagine looking through a window at any environment that is particularly significant to you. Reflect on the scene, paying close attention to the relation between what you are seeing and why it is meaningful to you. Please limit your statement to 300 words.
"Who has given them pens?"
Embarrassed, I raised my hand.
It was hard to let them down. In a world where refrigerator is a symbol of wealth, all those kids wanted from me were pens, which I had brought plenty.
The village kids were not allowed to enter the house. At night, they fought for space to get a glimpse of happenings inside the room through the window.
I was leaning at the window. The kids were experimenting with self-introduction using the words we taught them during the day; I was struggling to count from one to ten in Lao. We were all laughing hard. Then they started to point at the big goodie bag. They saw us taking out colorful pens, notebooks and stickers from it: to the children in the Lao village, it was a bagful of treasure.
I felt like Santa Claus: the kids looked at me in admiration as I shared some of my own pens amongst them.
"You should not have done it." Sophie, our teacher chaperon, said, "If we gave them once, they would hide the pens and come back for more."
Indeed they did. After I finished my pens, the kids had moved on to look for new playmates.
"The kids may think they can get things every time they ask for them. " Sophie was unusually serious, "That's not happening in life. Giving them pens this way is not going to help them."
Through the two-square-meter open window, the kids and I clapped hands and played simple games. We shared a simple and hard life. For the visitors from Singapore, it was ten days; for them, it might be for a lifetime. As a visitor who cannot be responsible for their future, doing no harm was far more important than satisfying a girl's vanity as a First World resident.
"Who has given them pens?"
Embarrassed, I raised my hand.
It was hard to let them down. In a world where refrigerator is a symbol of wealth, all those kids wanted from me were pens, which I had brought plenty.
The village kids were not allowed to enter the house. At night, they fought for space to get a glimpse of happenings inside the room through the window.
I was leaning at the window. The kids were experimenting with self-introduction using the words we taught them during the day; I was struggling to count from one to ten in Lao. We were all laughing hard. Then they started to point at the big goodie bag. They saw us taking out colorful pens, notebooks and stickers from it: to the children in the Lao village, it was a bagful of treasure.
I felt like Santa Claus: the kids looked at me in admiration as I shared some of my own pens amongst them.
"You should not have done it." Sophie, our teacher chaperon, said, "If we gave them once, they would hide the pens and come back for more."
Indeed they did. After I finished my pens, the kids had moved on to look for new playmates.
"The kids may think they can get things every time they ask for them. " Sophie was unusually serious, "That's not happening in life. Giving them pens this way is not going to help them."
Through the two-square-meter open window, the kids and I clapped hands and played simple games. We shared a simple and hard life. For the visitors from Singapore, it was ten days; for them, it might be for a lifetime. As a visitor who cannot be responsible for their future, doing no harm was far more important than satisfying a girl's vanity as a First World resident.