Dear Santa, 2010
It is, admittedly, extremely silly (and kind of rude) to do this, but I am about half a continent away from most of you, so niceties kind of go out the window. I do not want, nor do I need Christmas or holiday presents this year, but since I have been asked, I decided to put my christmas list online for your viewing pleasure. I also made sure that none of these things involve sending anything to Mexico, because a) it's kind of unreliable, and b) it's expensive.
All my ideas fall into three catagories:
1) Money.
It's blunt, I know, but anything that doesn't get spent here on clothes, essentials, or gifts to bring home will be going into either the fund to replace my Macbook (I miss my Macbook more than you could ever imagine. I never want to use Windows again -sorry, Windows fans. I'm a wuss. This is not news.),or into the petty cash fund which will be supporting me until I can get a job once I move out for college. Every little bit is really appreciated!
2) Books.
This one always stands, but it got a little more complicated this year. Since I am several hundred miles away from the nearest Borders, and mailing books to Mexico is a little silly, there are two ways to go here. One, Amazon.com gift card. Get either the Email or Facebook one, please, my poor parents already found out how much of a pain it is to send gift cards through the mail. You can get them here.
The other option is to get me anything off of my Wish List. This has been functioning as my "Help Me Remember What I Want To Buy Next List" for a while now, but it can work as a Christmas list, too. Note: all the books should be Kindle books, and don't get me subscriptions to any websites, blogs, or newspapers. The added media-fee for Mexico is rediculous. Books are perfect! My wish list is here.
3) Charity!
I always love this idea. Really, I would be imensly pleased that anyone donated to any charity in my name, but a couple of my favorites are:
-One Heart World-Wide: This is a special one for me. All their programs are really cool, but the Mexico one is, for obvious reasons, very important to me. One Heart funds go towards programs, doctors, and medical supplies for regions with staggeringly high mother and infant mortality rates, to help mothers and their children survive birth and early childhood. True, the program doesn't work in my region, but I've seen the horrible poverty many rural Southern Veracruz indiginous families live in, and when you realize that most of them are well-off in comparison to the residents of Sierra Tarahumara, you can begin to understand just how messed-up this situation is. These woman are amazing, supporting their families, raising their children, and continuing traditions their people have been upholding for hundreds of years.
-Heifer International: This has always been a favorite of mine. Originally, they only specialized in animals, although recently they have branched out into trees, gardens, and, for some reason, cheese. What they do is use donations to send animals or groups of animals to villages or remote areas that have none and teach the new owners how to use the animals to build livelihoods. Give a man money, and he can buy food. Give a man a camel and he can work, sell the things his camel makes naturally (milk, hair), get enough money to buy another camel, make little camels, sell little camels, start a tour business, who knows. Rather than offering short-term assistance, Heifer Int. helps give people the means to make themselves a solution in the long term, and idea I've always been very fond of. A couple of my favorites are llamas, camels, water buffalo, bees, trees, plants, cheese (because who doesn't like cheese?), and a new one I've never seen before called 'The Knitter's Basket'. I love knitting, and being deprived of it over this winter has driven me to a sort of distraction. I found myseld considering unraveling an old t-shirt the other day and knitting it into another shape with pencils...
-Seva Foundation: This is one I just found out about, so I don't know much about their other programs, but I read about their 'Sight' program in either Times or National Geographic (I can't remember which), and it sounded really cool. They help people in third world countries regain the ability to use their eyes. Stuff like preventing blindess in children, buying proper glasses for people who can't afford them, and performing cateract surgery for people who need it. Very cool.
-Kiva: This is another one of those helping-people-help-themselves one. Donations function as small business loans and start up capitol for people who can't afford the interest rates in big banks, so they can start businesses to support their families and communities. It's a little more complicated then that, but stil, very cool!
I am still looking for a charity working towards sustainable water and irigation! After reading National Geographic's water issue, I started to think a lot more about that. After the hurricanes on the coast, I got to see some of this stuff first-hand. Mexico has little to no drinkable groundwater. Everyone survives on imported bottled water. There were litterally thousands of people along the coast whose houses were underwater, who were drowning, but at the same time dying of thirst. That, my friends, is messed up. If anyone knows a good water-based charity, please tell me!
To be continued...
All my ideas fall into three catagories:
1) Money.
It's blunt, I know, but anything that doesn't get spent here on clothes, essentials, or gifts to bring home will be going into either the fund to replace my Macbook (I miss my Macbook more than you could ever imagine. I never want to use Windows again -sorry, Windows fans. I'm a wuss. This is not news.),or into the petty cash fund which will be supporting me until I can get a job once I move out for college. Every little bit is really appreciated!
2) Books.
This one always stands, but it got a little more complicated this year. Since I am several hundred miles away from the nearest Borders, and mailing books to Mexico is a little silly, there are two ways to go here. One, Amazon.com gift card. Get either the Email or Facebook one, please, my poor parents already found out how much of a pain it is to send gift cards through the mail. You can get them here.
The other option is to get me anything off of my Wish List. This has been functioning as my "Help Me Remember What I Want To Buy Next List" for a while now, but it can work as a Christmas list, too. Note: all the books should be Kindle books, and don't get me subscriptions to any websites, blogs, or newspapers. The added media-fee for Mexico is rediculous. Books are perfect! My wish list is here.
3) Charity!
I always love this idea. Really, I would be imensly pleased that anyone donated to any charity in my name, but a couple of my favorites are:
-One Heart World-Wide: This is a special one for me. All their programs are really cool, but the Mexico one is, for obvious reasons, very important to me. One Heart funds go towards programs, doctors, and medical supplies for regions with staggeringly high mother and infant mortality rates, to help mothers and their children survive birth and early childhood. True, the program doesn't work in my region, but I've seen the horrible poverty many rural Southern Veracruz indiginous families live in, and when you realize that most of them are well-off in comparison to the residents of Sierra Tarahumara, you can begin to understand just how messed-up this situation is. These woman are amazing, supporting their families, raising their children, and continuing traditions their people have been upholding for hundreds of years.
-Heifer International: This has always been a favorite of mine. Originally, they only specialized in animals, although recently they have branched out into trees, gardens, and, for some reason, cheese. What they do is use donations to send animals or groups of animals to villages or remote areas that have none and teach the new owners how to use the animals to build livelihoods. Give a man money, and he can buy food. Give a man a camel and he can work, sell the things his camel makes naturally (milk, hair), get enough money to buy another camel, make little camels, sell little camels, start a tour business, who knows. Rather than offering short-term assistance, Heifer Int. helps give people the means to make themselves a solution in the long term, and idea I've always been very fond of. A couple of my favorites are llamas, camels, water buffalo, bees, trees, plants, cheese (because who doesn't like cheese?), and a new one I've never seen before called 'The Knitter's Basket'. I love knitting, and being deprived of it over this winter has driven me to a sort of distraction. I found myseld considering unraveling an old t-shirt the other day and knitting it into another shape with pencils...
-Seva Foundation: This is one I just found out about, so I don't know much about their other programs, but I read about their 'Sight' program in either Times or National Geographic (I can't remember which), and it sounded really cool. They help people in third world countries regain the ability to use their eyes. Stuff like preventing blindess in children, buying proper glasses for people who can't afford them, and performing cateract surgery for people who need it. Very cool.
-Kiva: This is another one of those helping-people-help-themselves one. Donations function as small business loans and start up capitol for people who can't afford the interest rates in big banks, so they can start businesses to support their families and communities. It's a little more complicated then that, but stil, very cool!
I am still looking for a charity working towards sustainable water and irigation! After reading National Geographic's water issue, I started to think a lot more about that. After the hurricanes on the coast, I got to see some of this stuff first-hand. Mexico has little to no drinkable groundwater. Everyone survives on imported bottled water. There were litterally thousands of people along the coast whose houses were underwater, who were drowning, but at the same time dying of thirst. That, my friends, is messed up. If anyone knows a good water-based charity, please tell me!
To be continued...
