Ka-Blog!

The first New Zealander I met was a Maori.  He was an activist and he had a lot of terrible things to say about the white guys who took away their land from them.  It was true; the white guys really did rob lands from the Maori and gave them lots of diseases besides.
        It took more than a decade before I had the chance to talk to more New Zealanders, both of whom are white.
        The first white New Zealander I met is the director of this international NGO that places volunteers in nearly 30 countries all over the world.  His name is Colin Salisbury.  He is not a stranger to the Philippines having visited the country in years past as a volunteer himself.  He lived on top of the infamous Smokey Mountain and stayed there for weeks.  I have been to Smokey Mountain myself and I thought my one day visit is more than enough horrid memory of a place.  Colin went back several times for different reasons.  He visited us last August when we just started our volunteer placement organization.  I like him.
       Our very first volunteer from New Zealand, or Kiwi as they curiously like to call themselves, is someone of a different mold entirely.  Unlike the two activist-type guys I met earlier, this one was a capitalist.  He owned his own company and by any measure was a successful white guy.  He slid into a funk the past couple of yearsthat led him to our shores.
       I urge anyone out looking for a good read to log on to www.crazymalc.co.nz.  No one in the information superhighway could have put his experiences in the Philippines better than he did.  His website is so good that it is de rigeur  for me to mention his web addy to all our future volunteers.
       I am one of the tens of thousands who regularly log on to crazymalc’s website.  I would like to believe that I have the most special reason to do so.  In the many times when I think of giving up our volunteer placement work because of the oh-so-many problems we face, I think of Malcolm and how volunteers like him make all our sacrifices worthwhile. 
       He says he’s crazy.  But in a crazy country like the Philippines, Malcolm is one of the sanest men I know.
       I have always said that Malcolm has been our best volunteer so far.  And although I do sometimes, I really do not like repeating myself.  But, really, Malcolm is the best.
       This is just a cobbled up entry.  I only felt obliged to write it because I read that Malcolm misses a whole bunch of Filipinos.  He’s back in his own country–a land where the national bird is a flightless one.
        I only wish to tell him that only one guy misses us in New Zealand but there are many who miss him in the Philippines.
       It is unfair.