It sometimes takes a tragedy hitting close to home to make you appreciate things.

Today's tragedy occured far from home, in any sense of the world, but struck hard nonetheless. A fellow IISD intern, stationed in Ghana, was robbed on Saturday by two armed men. After they stole his "money, camera, shoes, backpack, walkman, clothes, etc.", they locked him in the washroom. It was his 30th birthday.

I am feeling so fortunate that my experience abroad has so far been nearly hassle-free. I am also feeling very badly for my colleague and wishing there were something more I could do than simply wish there were something more I could do.

Making the world a better place is sometimes a difficult endeavour to sustain; it is easy to allow events like this shake your optimism, faith, or motivation. I suppose we're supposed to take lessons from such occurences. Like that you should always be careful or something.

I think the truth is that the world is sometimes just a really shitty place, for some people, in some places, at certain times. And always will be. And there's not much we can really do to change that...

But I do think that the little things count. Making a difference does not necessitate fixing everything, all at once. Right?