Back in Seattle and feeling like there ought to be something to wrap up this blog. My response to most people since returning has been to apologetically agree with an implied understanding of the futility of trying to work in Haiti. But the beauty of my time there was that I escaped the cynical acceptance that allows us to live our lives in some level of comfort. It was not pure but rather filled with difficult questions about the nature of happiness and the morality of giving. It was a messy assault on the inequality that we are used to seeing from a distance and it was self indulgent.
There is some purity in building schools, however, and I'm proud of the small contribution I made. I am also even more convinced that addressing the question of how seven or nine billion of us can live well on this planet is where I want to spend my energy, and that the incredible density in cities of the developing world is at the heart of it. I loved the work that simultaneously forces the most practical understanding of building materials and broad moral questioning. It will be fun to see what happens next.
Now, an unarmed walk downtown with my wonderful Macrae to see the Picasso exhibit and a big New Year's Eve. Thanks for reading all this uh.. crap.
