Not your fathers...

I mean like 30 plus years ago I went into the Peace Corps with a few simple things. My Dad had made me a kind of big box that turned out to be just the right thing. In Ghana where I ended up, the schools were mostly boys boarding schools and the boys all came with a box very similar to mine. They were known as chop boxes. Mine was a little larger so when I arrived I was already famous for the largest chop box. On the bus coming over I didn't really understand any of this, just that people were making jokes about my box which I of course didn't really understand. But I guess if we were all laughing then that's fine with me.

Now my daughter is going off on a similar mission but in a bit of a different way. She's off to Africa with an iPod, Blackberry and a net book. It's true that the world has changed and there is cell coverage in a lot of places that you wouldn't expect. For example, as of a couple of years ago Namibia had excellent coverage on all the roads and towns. But the Peace Corps is really about sending off some young Americans and letting the world enjoy their youth and enthusiasm. If they do some good then that's great too. JFK created the Peace Corps and fired it with his joy of sending American kids off to the world.

The village I was sent to had phones. The oil mill was phone number 1, the school was number 2, and the headmaster's house was number 3.

I wish her well, but part of me hopes that the ipod and the blackberry will get dumped into the river and the netbook will be thrown down the hill into the swamp. Then she will learn a thing or two about how the world works.