"Before you go trouncing off the Africa, you have better have a damned good understanding of exactly what you want to see accomplished. What needs to be changed? What as-yet untried method will you be involved in so that good resources will not be wasted on methods that have proven over time to NOT be effective? make sure you are not throwing your life away to "feel" like you are accomplishing something."

Haha believe that is my plan. I have three years yet in university, then to grad school.

Also, to the guy who advised me to first go before I decide to live there all my life, I agree. I have been (though it was only for about two months), and intend to go again. A year from now I will be spending my summer in Ghana and the following year I will spend my entire school year living with a Senegalese family. So I think by the end of that I will know, but if that wasn't enough I hope to go into the Peace Corps between grad and undergrad, given my knowledge of French etc I'm hoping they send me to west Africa (if I get in that is). That's 2 years and change. So... I think I will have time to decide if I want to live there forever. Right now I do, but you are right that could change.

About grunt work. I agree that I would like to think I can be of more use than grunt labor. The reason I brought it up was to say that I am willing to do that sort of work, especially to start with, and it was also to make the point that if that's the only thing I can do that will make any difference, then I will do it.

Anyway. Kiva is a great program, I agree, from what I hear of it. However now is not the time to give up on the UN and USAID and the IMF etc. Though their systems are some of the worst, they have the most resources, and if they were changed from within (or without), it would affect a great amount of change. This is partly my objective were I to go to a place like DC.

Anyway. Thanks for the advice everyone sorry to have inflamed this a bit. I don't usually get heated, so I apologize.