Building up the karma bank

I really only believe in karma while traveling in far away places. Too many things can go wrong while away from home, and karma can be a real bitch sometimes. The easiest way to build up karma while traveling is by giving a donation to a church while touring. I'm sure there is something sac religious about giving money to a church to build up karma, but I'm a religious pluralist and think it's possible for them all to work. (Except the made up ones, like scientology. I don't really get that.) Besides, karma is essentially the same idea as the Christian practice of tithing. Give to God (or the universe) and God (or the universe) will give back to you.

That being said, I did not volunteer yesterday at a local school solely to build up karma, although I would be really happy if that helped. I was hoping to be able to volunteer somehow since I got here, I just wasn't sure how. On Saturday, several other teachers and I volunteered to help paint classrooms at a local school. I put on my oldest traveling pants (that I bought three years ago for the British Isles trip I took with Holli, which have now been to over 10 countries, don't have functioning pockets, and should really be put out of their misery) and got ready to work. We expected it to be about 3 hours, 4 tops, but it turned out to be 5. Our supplies were pretty limited. We barely had enough paint brushes to go around, and only two rollers for three rooms, and the rollers kept taking chunks of wall with them. I was assigned to a room with Alayne and Maribeth. There was a thick layer of dust everywhere. The walls really needed to be scraped before we started, but we had neither the tools nor the time, so we just had to paint over it. It wasn't long before we had a group of kids who really wanted to help out. So much so that they got into near physical arguments over the last remaining paintbrush and we had to step in to moderate. After we ran out of paint, we took a break to play soccer with the kids. I played soccer for one season in the third grade, so I'm not exactly good at it, but it was so much fun to play with them. I'd like to be able to do it more often. Maybe they need a recess monitor or something. After a little while the new paint arrived (although it wasn't exactly the same shade of white), and it was time to get back to work, which caused more arguments over paintbrushes, so we asked all the kids to go play soccer instead of painting. By the time we put one coat of paint in our classroom, I was pretty wiped out and HUNGRY (next time I'll be sure to bring a lunch), and all the kids had bailed to go home and eat lunch. Even if it doesn't help with karma, it can't hurt, right? Plus, talking to the kids helps me with my Spanish. They're just happy to be talking.