The forum's shutting down, and that's not a rave. What is a rave is the people of this forum and their wealth of knowledge. I have become a better and more open-minded person by being a member here. Thanks for all of the advice, the compassion, the encouragement, the laughs. All of it. Truly a great group of people except for Limes.
My brain was going "you're welcome, you're welcome, you're welcome" until the last bit ...but I have been foolish, casting my pearls before swine!Originally Posted by roki
I've been forwarding (and sending additional) money to an 'Orphanage' in Uganda, for some time now.
People I've been forwarding money for are a well known musician ('music book Author' that well known Musicians tout for some reason or another on how to play the harmonica) as well as a Magna Cum Laude who can't write worth shit and for some reason forward their ignored manuscript of bad poetry from their transition into a Marine to people who aren't their book publisher (like me who edited it and gave them some recommendation of incorporating their own guitar experience into writing a book that a self-published author publishing on Amazon made millions from in revenue as seen through a Reddit post I forwarded.) Another asked me to change my Paypal profile image to a more smiley one, and I happily remind them by forwarding my communication to the prior two, that sending money directly through Paypal has at a minimum a 5-10% incurred in fees (so sending under $100 through Paypal tends to cost about $5-10 in fees, or if sending $350 I will tend to receive $10.50 less) and it only costs $1-2 if using World Remit for whatever reason and practically no matter how much is sent
which may or may not be tapped into exchange rates which is where much of the money likely is profited from.)
I even created a website for the orphanage with all the information on it and have linked to that and posted on numerous occasions, even giving an example of someone who utilized the information, and how it benefitted the bottom-line of that orphanage; and out of the several years this has been going on I think only 1 person managed to pull it off despite ample opportunities to do something with regard. The Magna Cum Laude writes like: "I’m here to help brother, I have your backs Thank you for serving the children brother May God protect you and your loved ones spirits" without actually addressing a reiteration of the same issues presented on numerous occasions.
Plus using the program directly and using the referral link link I've been reminding them on numerous occasion, not only sends $20 to both parties, but also using it costs significantly less than using a middle man who feels obligated to add on additional money (which is probably the "reward" incentive behind the 'Orphanage' to encourage if I keep adding on for whatever alleged project.)
Eventually once a health crisis emergency required the actual author/musician (who is self-published though only selling hard copies that have been out of print for some time) to be airlifted to another state for emergency healthcare, it seems he started using an old defunct email address (something that likely stopped being a functional email account years ago now) and I couldn't tell if it was deliberate with the intent to not get funds transferred, or to keep his business PayPal account separate (so the IRS doesn't start requesting 1099-K for misappropriation of funds which is something I've been bringing up as a rationale for using World Remit)
The Magna Cum Laude continued as always and started sending forwarding emails to 10 of his own accounts (which I suspect is a narcissistic posturing) and when this was brought up by the person running the 'Orphanage' who also receives forwarded junk mail like the self-publishing scam, I suggested:
It sort of feels that way when talking to them (though the actual Musician Author seems to have misread my communication despite being fairly communicative, when suggesting much of the money goes to educational purposes amongst other things, which he interpreted as suggesting they lack understanding in Uganda--YES, because supposedly the areas they are benefiting are not getting funding for education--as he assumed because other people with Medical Doctorates from Taiwan (who never got back to me on whether or not the money he sent for a Christmas party showed up in the actual party, or was being expropriated for personal interests like a wedding ceremony with a woman who doesn't even live with him in the house that was paid for by a person who donated (who is a LPGA player that relied on her husbands business who he was either let go prior or during Covid where he then started working as an old-fashioned (formal) elevator operator for Saks Fifth Ave in NYC during the height of the pandemic. . . for what was probably $16 per hour.)Ask him to only text and block his emails, or start sending them directly to spam, so that he will wonder why he has to forward to 10 of his own email accounts, and the only person responding to him is himself.)
I limit communication outside of transferring funds and requesting they use World Remit. . . People don't want to justify anything other than how it makes them feel, and seem to view their sending money as some kind of R.C. indulgences.
Is there a "Send to a Friend" Option for them? I think this is a way to get around the fees of sending money.
Where in Uganda? Years ago, I had some small connection to an orphanage in Bugiri, which is about 220 miles east of Kampala. I was wanting to go visit there a few years ago but had too much up in the air here. Now I'm thinking of teaching English remotely. Maybe do some videos. How big is the orphanage? Have you been? Do you do a lot of editing for them?
Mityana, however, I've noticed he seems to have connections in Kampala where he went to school (and may have gone to college but probably never graduated, he seems to have just gone to a high school.) Also, I created a website that replaced another one, and I've been wondering about many claims that surround his narrative of things prior to encountering him online, and he seems to have had multiple Facebook accounts at some time, one of which went down and never recovered following a strange incident involving Taiwan. I've never been to the continent.
A lot of the people sending money lack common-sense and any communication with them will tend to go right over their head (they just passively seem to say crap to make you believe they are comprehending, and then proceed to do exactly what you told them not to do (such as send a direct link to Paypal without specifying options or how it works the way you describe, or the benefits of sending money through a WR referral link.) The main reason Paypal was given as an option was to make it easier in the case that World Remit didn't work (and yes, sending it as a "friend" to avoid not paying fees is one aspect, but more often than not they seem to not do it,) or when sending over $100 which they routinely do, they seem to ignore the benefit of using World Remit (or the purpose of why they send money so that the fucking orphanage is able to do what it claims to be representing.)
It's possible that PayPal just makes it easier and the disregard to wasted expenditures or using the only income source as a piggyback onto personal expenditure and is just a lazy way for the person that generally runs the orphanage to get people willing to send money (which using other options generally makes them hesitant.
I wanted to get out of helping them a long time ago as I was getting pissed off with the evasive and half-assed explanations, and the evident bullshit comprehension that is so damn ubiquitous with people from Uganda (I worked with someone from that country and they could never give a straight answer as to how their government works with education or healthcare, and I suspect many orphanages are just taking advantage of the fucked up social climate that was responsible for the so-called "orphans" (read that as underprivileged youth with poor support structures in both family and government assistance.) A bit of the issue is that an orphanage is run similar to getting free handouts which doesn't usually encourage people to be innovative or to show much effort on their part (if people are willing to assist and be "good people" it means you don't ask questions that might help them, as most of their daily activities are operated from the modus that having a "need" requires more assistance, ad infinitum.
Any communication is just an imperative to manipulate and get more assistance rather than act as a natural discourse on fundamental development. Any suggested offering is never sufficient and is just a means to continue a cycle of requests for more aid, much of which gets wasted on assisting others who are merely assisting because it's the only game in town; and where people visiting from outside the country are being shoestringed along and exploited for financial gain.
It might just be that I have a very different way of looking at it from the majority of people (even when I give information that would benefit them that comes from their own country, such as asking if they have a means to use waste products such as composting to encourage fly larvae to be attracted to it, which would be used as a protein source to feed their chickens (basically the property had been a former egg farm that failed which Uganda has a long history of economic issues with grain costs and things which prevented them from being profitable; which I'm guessing the guy was not aware of the economic issues and feasible scale of operating. . .) Usually, the purchase of the property had several caveats that were not disclosed at the time of purchase, such as a water bill that was grossly ignored (and apparently tap water isn't good for chickens so he eventually gets a large drum of water that needs to be refilled to feed them which was intent on being sourced from rain runoff) but also the coop has a second floor that was collapsing on itself.)
If all of the money comes from outside operations (the goal was to make a revenue source but also to possibly farm (so without any experience he was wanting to buy a land plot for several thousand dollars, but then brings up the option to pay $80 to use the land for 6 months.) Most information is not disclosed so as to be used as a source of further money, and something I thought was strange is that within days of going over to Taiwan he then asks for money to get some government document he didn't have for travel, but also needed money for food while he was gone (and noting the size of his assistant I suspect I know where it was going,) and because his assistant seems to have caused some glitch in World Remits security protocol, but also somehow along this process Facebook flagged their main profile which is why he reopened an old account and started using that. . . (with no mention of an orphanage at the time.) This is also when a girl with an life-saving operation needed to be operated on (which I do believe is real surgery, and it reminds me of a Dr. Ramani video discussing psychopathy and sociopathy, where she describes that they might be exploiting people and some contribution to humanity is provided; and thus the idea that such character traits of society could potentially lead to the greater good?)
Much of the intent to persuade people into buying the property was to get the girls that were apparently living in Foster homes to not be molested, but the house itself is hardly big enough for a fraction of what he claimed to have them in, and what he does is throw parties and have banners set up for people that were just barely assisting them, and which I believe was being manipulated into establishing connections to Taiwan to then prepare them for donating even more money towards a girl that seems to coincidentally need emergency surgery for a brain hemorrhage (which I suspect was truly neglected, but I'm wondering if this was an issue they had for a longer time, or if they just select certain individuals to go along with their narrative to get the treatment, while possibly exploiting the status of the orphanage to get free assistance from people in their town while pretending they are outright buying a property while using the money for other things.
And perhaps they are taken advantage of as well or it's widely assumed that someone who isn't donating because of religious beliefs and does not says, "thoughts and prayers," or "godspeed" or some such, must clearly have an agenda?
I basically expected the people that have religious beliefs to be more accomodating and helpful or actively engaged with assisting them, and the sad reality is that they would rather throw money at the issue rather than resolve it. . . It pisses me off.
The only time I would consider visiting Africa is either to learn about Egypt, or if visiting places like Zimbabwe or Ethiopia were conducive to solving some of the mysteries I've explored (namely things that Graham Hancock talks about, however, I suspect his study of Ethiopia was much the same as the "relics" of old cathedrals.) Zimbabwe has the school called Ariel in the city of Ruwa which appearing outside the privileged student body believed it to be Tokoloshe (or 'Tikoloshe' from Zulu/Xhosa mythology,) which in their accounts sounded like they were talking about the modern UFO phenomenon with spacecraft (but because I still believe that much of the general analysis of the events were largely glossed over I can't help but wonder if it was mass hysteria as some would want to believe because it's convenient.)
Also, needing a brand new $400 piano, or a brand new motorcycle hardly comes across as needy. . . People can't even give away pianos here, and I don't expect that many legitimate religious institutions had such pianos, and if they did it doesn't seem likely they would know how to use it without having some experience with it. It's little odd things like this, and I know a person I helped prior to this one has a very active online presence warning people about them, and many such orphanages have a reputation for a reason; and yes, I suspect some foul play exists. Basically, he was using another property for boys that they seem to still stay at (but he never seems to demonstrate any visiting of them, as if to wonder if he is playing two sides of the same coin? Does the woman that doesn't live with him just go along with pretending to have a child, and he's playing a "family man" that wouldn't molest girls (and I suspect he doesn't and I have to wonder if he uses the extra money to pay for prostitutes, or if he might have even had some weird relationship with his male assistant.) I suspect he's a bit like people in Hollywood who put on a front of being straight just to appease the people that would watch them on film.
I highly suspect people like this are suspicious to the local population, and they carry on a bit like people in poor communities known to traffic drugs, that appear to have a sentimental interest in helping their communities through food donation or other charitable "fronts," which is possibly why communities like this don't rally together to help out, as they are equally skeptical of being the source of assistance?
I just now realized I wrote in the Rave section. . .
In just my own experience, the answer to “Why are you here?”, which doesn’t always get directly asked, tells a lot about a person. A lot of the people I’ve volunteered with over the years have been broken and recovering, or lost, or disoriented. Some healthy ones have done it for a bit but they quickly tire of it, or don’t want to get their hands dirty when they realize what it really entails. I don’t know if I’d be suspicious of someone when asked why they volunteer is “Oh, no real reason, I just liked the brochure,” but even bored people have bit more going on underneath the surface. There’s another type of suspicion of people and that’s for commitment. If there’s not something internal driving them or something bigger than them, it may be hard to trust that person to be there when the going gets tough.
If we were working together on a project, I’d prolly respond with, ‘I know what you mean but…’ before launching into a larger conversation. So, I'll just ramble here, haha! I guess what I’d say now just be happy that you got someone there to stop and take a flyer. Really, donating is huge. A lot of worthy causes need money. Who knows if these people would've even opened up their checkbooks if not for religion? A lot of places don’t really understand what the worth of a volunteer coordinator could potentially be. It’s like a catcher in softball. A lot of teams in even semi-competitive beer leagues will stick somebody behind the plate who rarely catches the ball but will be lucky to get the pitch before it hits the backstop. But if you’ve got someone who knows to backup throws to third base, able to catch the ball and tag a runner, and call out where the ball is or where the base runners are, you can easily cut 3-4 runs a game. People who volunteer need actual tasks where it seems their effort is needed. Even if it’s just busy work, like stuffing envelopes. A lot of volunteer coordinators plan to get people checked in, have food for them, T-shirts, and maybe prizes, which is good, but nothing is more essential than making volunteers go home thinking, “Thank God, I showed up!” It’s not even ego but just feeling of being a part of a human chain, that what I did mattered, gets people coming back and helps them to build a desire to get more involved in the future. I’ve stated multiple times over the years that I don’t really get that satisfied feeling from volunteering but plenty of people do and often times people volunteer not realizing what they’re looking for but then somehow get it and it makes a world of difference to them.
One of the biggest selling religious books was “The Purpose-Driven Life.” Even religious people want to know that they matter and that they are somehow fulfilling God’s call or desire for them. This actually may have something to do with why they don’t help more. I think some legit religious people don’t want to get too close out of fear of being asked to do more than they would otherwise want to. I’d say for me that God’s asked me to do more than a few things I didn’t want to do. Terrifying. I may be thankful after the fact but they haven’t been without stress or turmoil. Less than two years ago I met a lawyer who was actively involved with the law college at his alma matter, had a great position with a respected firm, lovely wife and kids, his health, pretty much it all. Things were going so well he was able to take his family to a conference in like Greece or Italy, thinking they could explore during the day while he’s in class, and then they could go out together at night. Some workshop comes up on international law in developing countries and this white atty, with a somewhat conservative and idealized view of the law, meets someone and gives him his card. He expected to send some info via email, maybe give a name or two referral and that to be that. Uh huh, 3 weeks later, he’s flying off to Africa. 18 months and several trips back & forth, he’s moved his family out there. He & his family love it. Grew to love it, I should say. It wasn’t all easy but he’d always been very happy with the decision. Still, it’s scary to think about. I fear stuff like that. I know a lot of other Christians fear it too. Blindly giving money keeps God off your back but more importantly, keeps you out of a hut in some developing nation or being held as a political prisoner, or worst of all, a religious martyr in some freezing, authoritative country. The odds are extremely rare of any of those things happening but I’ve met my share of those people who’ve been called to such actions. Many Christians have. And no matter how dedicated or sold out they are for the Lord, one of the prevalent thought upon walking away from meeting someone who fulfilled a call to give up their entire life for Jesus is “Whew, that coulda been me!”
That could be. There are prolly some other people who should be out in front, so to speak, for such issues and the community. How do you find them and how do you get them there, are the questions.
Haha, that deescalated quickly! Thanks, interesting perspective and some things I’ll think about going forward.
I agree, it's easy for people to attach purpose and meaning behind convictions and too often, I suspect it's people coming from the perspective, that they have a guilt-trip with their life's purpose and meaning. I suspect many people are doing it for narcissistic reasons (I still am not 100% sure that I might have been compelled on some level; as if I was hoping to put myself out their and spread the word not out of some internalized pain and angst from childhood identity--feeling as though I identified as someone that felt as though I was neglected on some level--and seeking to "rewrite" the outcome of some ego-identity confirmation. I say this from the perspective that I believe much of what compels my lack of resolution with the future has to do with emotional hangups that make me apprehensive about people in general, and that by seeking to help on some level fills a void of "hope" that society isn't generally doing things for what is ultimately a selfish agenda: ergo, people have children out of spite for society, and the only driving force behind helping the needed in this situation is to take advantage of the overt acts of kindness and how it presents the caregiver as a 'White Knight' savior of some kind (so basically Jim Jones could potentially have been a good orphanage volunteer in Guyana had things turned out differently. . .)
So basically the person that paid for the home that the guy stays which was basically a failed chicken egg farm has expressed on Facebook and in communication with me that she has been called a narcissist and had a falling-out with her children who stopped being in contact with her. I tend to believe a lot of people that have issues like this were raised with emotional neglect or invalidation and it fuels a sense of codependency or some form of respite for an externalized identity (so perhaps a need for a support structure plays some role where feeling invalidation would otherwise be a central-locus of correcting that sense of anxiety, allowing some people to "push the button" on that donation when asked; so people like the orphanage "leader" takes advantage of that and knows it's far easier taking advantage of emotionally labile people. )
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