priorities

Yes, the chance to meet Stephanie Pearl-McPhee was (by far) the best thing about last week. Give me a chance and I'll even gush about it for at least 35 minutes. (Oh, wait, I did that already in my last post.)

What I didn't say in my last post was actually the more important event, by far. If you've seen her on this tour, then you'll have seen the nice lady sitting next to her. Did you give her money for Knitters Without Borders? I grabbed a five from my bag and handed it to her, almost as an afterthought. There was a ten in there earmarked for them, but I just gave the five I grabbed off the top. The nice lady gave me a neat pin, and I thought that was the end of it. Not so much.

On my drive back home (about an hour) a bit of guilt wormed its way through the back of my mind. Yes, it cost me 20 bucks in gas to get to Northampton, plus $7 for two boxes of cereal for the WEBS charity. I thought it would be enough. As I drove home, I kept thinking about how much I spent on yarn there at WEBS. Eighty-nine dollars. Oh My God. If I could afford 89 bucks worth of wool, you think I could have given more than a measly fiver? To boot, I came home and went to dinner with DH. That was it, I had to do something.

A couple of years ago my sister went to a former Soviet republic with Doctors Without Borders. I don't even remember which one, since the big controversy was that sis was going it all. See, although she's a pharmacist and was really needed there, she has lupus. Most of the time, she's fine, but if she needed a lot of medical help? No luck. And let's not forget that wherever she was going there was civil unrest. Guns, shootings, kidnapping of Americans. My mother was less than thrilled.

My sister went a half a world away to help people, and all I did was give a measly five bucks? I was ashamed, and rightly so.

Reading the Knitters Without Borders page at the Yarn Harlot site I saw a link to here. I bought stuff. Its a good thing. Is it enough? Its not a month-long commitment to helping others in a third-world country. But its a start.