I’m really glad to have gone to the dinner about the Poverty Inc. documentary. It really opened my eyes about some of the deeper impacts of the United States’ efforts to save the world from poverty. At first, we talked about how in Africa, a lot of people strive to leave their home country for education in the United States. Some of my fellow dinner guests were Africans who did so. However, there is a need for them to return, and when they don’t, there is brain drain in the country. A lot of students become accustomed to the United States lifestyle and end up staying here. But one of the other guests stated that in her schools, there was an emphasis on returning to her home country because she could make much bigger changes there than she could here.

I later up brought up a youtube video I saw about Haitian children eating dirt because they had nothing better to eat. The video may not be completely true, but there was a message sent in the video. The country is really really poor. A lot of it had to do with the earthquakes a few years ago, but the main setback the country faced was the United States’ influx of food for the people. The farms in Haiti were still fine, but with all the free food being given to the Haitian people, there was no need for them to purchase locally. This caused the economy to go down the drain and set Haiti back. The message I got from the dinner: Is the United States helping too much? Is there a limit to how much the United States should be helping?

Over the past weekend, I also started watching Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, with their new host, Trevor Noah, who is from South Africa. I looked back on his older appearances on the show. One of his segments had to do exactly what was discussed in the dinner. Though this was a comedic segment, there was a lot of truth to what he was saying.