First Letter from my Sponsored Child

[Superted]

After what must be 8 months of sponsoring and delaying in sending a letter myself, he gave up hope and just sent one himself. Ok not him personally, his father wrote it and then it was translated, does anyone here speak Indonesian by any chance? I'm sure the translator is a lovely person, but having a name like Wili sort of makes me think it's a joke.

Let's analyize the letter from eleven year old (I think) Odianus Menu, written by his father Ignasius Lasi (wtf, they don't have the same name?)

The beloved Mrs. MYNAME

Firstly, I'm not a woman. The original letter seems to be written to Mr. so I don't see hwo the translator screwed that one up.

Hello! How are you and your family?Odianus hopes you are all getting very well as he is here.

Took a couple of reads but it's ok.

What are your daily activities? We are very glad getting news from you.

When I reply, I think I'll have to lie so they don't disown me. Furthermore I've never sent them any news, I guess the sponsorship company is doing that for me, I hope they're not rooting through my rubbish to find any news about me.

Could you please visit Odi someday in Timor? He does miss you!!!

Err, I've never seen him nor talked to him, how he missed me I don't know. I assume that's another error in translation. As for visiting him, err, we'll see....maybe in 10 years or so.

We live economically very simple but we really welcome you all!!! We are traditional farming family. Do you farm like us? Do you have livestock?

Err not exactly, unless you count a few goldfish.

He will be very happy if you would like to enclose him your some family photographs when writing back.

That's a bit of an assumption if I do say so myself. I will write back, see below. However, I don't think I can send photos.

Odi grows up fast now.
He is looking forward to hear from you sooner.
Yours truly

That's nice.


So now I have to reply, but I've no idea what to say. I'm also worried that the translators are going to screw it up into something offensive. Any ideas?

EDIT: I've just discovered that he'll actually be 9 on the 13th September. Of course I'll send him a gift but now I can't help but feel that he sent me the letter just to get one, lol.

[Ilya]

my friend had a 7 year old penpal in school for some dumb club he was in and he never felt like writing them so i always wrote letters for him and i always started letters with "the big D" cause his name is dylan and he is pretty fat

in my last letter i told him i loved talking to him and it breaks my heart that we werent gonna talk anymore

also i drew a picture of a dinosaur cause kids love that stuff

[duel pasta]

wow your sensitive

[Ilya]

nah i just wanted to touch him.

[Subjugation]

Be careful giving away too much personal info, man. This kind of shit can turn bad quick...unless this is through a really professional organization with a really good reputation. If that's the case, I'm possibly just being overly cautious.

First, they have your home address, then pics of people who are important to you, then a list of your hobbies. Any decent scam/con artist can easily ruin your life with that much info. Then they get you to develop an emotional attachment to some alleged 9 year old (who may or may not exist), then they ask for more "help". Seriously, just be careful. The world is a jungle, and there are plenty of savages roaming the countryside.

[Vehicle]

Be careful giving away too much personal info, man. This kind of shit can turn bad quick...unless this is through a really professional organization with a really good reputation. If that's the case, I'm possibly just being overly cautious.

First, they have your home address, then pics of people who are important to you, then a list of your hobbies. Any decent scam/con artist can easily ruin your life with that much info. Then they get you to develop an emotional attachment to some alleged 9 year old (who may or may not exist), then they ask for more "help". Seriously, just be careful. The world is a jungle, and there are plenty of savages roaming the countryside.

WTF? Why would anyone go out of there way to destroy a random guy who's sponsoring a child?




But on the other hand, I have a couple questions I always wanted to ask people who sponsor children. How do you know you're actually sponsoring a kid and not some corporation? Isn't it entirly possible for the cooproration to just write poorly spoken letters etc.? Does the organization openly admit to taking any of the money you donate? I'm just a little skeptical about all those sorts of things, i'm sure there are some good organizations out there, but i'm also sure there are some shitty ones.

[Subjugation]

Destroy a random guy? You basically said the same shit I did.

I'm asking him to be careful because I actually like him and don't want him to get scammed.

[Superted]

lol, I'm with the 'Plan', discovered a leaflet in newscientist magazine so I trust it. But the truth is there really is no possible way of knowing if I'm being scammed or not, but it's a risk I'm willing to take, the benefits of what should happen with my money outweighs what could be happening if the company is corrupt. They do send reports of what the money is going to and I think they put annual ones on their website but I've never looked at them.

EDIT: http://www.plan-uk.org/about/moneymatters/

From every £1 you gave us in the last financial year, we spent 81.8 pence on direct charitable expenditure to benefit children. In other words, over 81p of every £1 given to us was used to run the programmes and projects that improve the lives of children.

Of the remaining 18.2p, 12.9 was invested in fundraising activities to attract new sponsors and increase Plan UK's income, and the final 5.3p was spent on supporting, managing and administering the charity and its trading company.

[ZeUs!!]

I've got a 17 year old Russian immigrant penpal

[Epinephrine]

I've got a 17 year old Russian immigrant penpal

And when she's 18 you can look her up on www.wives.ru

[ZeUs!!]

IlyaZ, you're now female

[Jeansi]

Be careful giving away too much personal info, man. This kind of shit can turn bad quick...unless this is through a really professional organization with a really good reputation. If that's the case, I'm possibly just being overly cautious.

First, they have your home address, then pics of people who are important to you, then a list of your hobbies. Any decent scam/con artist can easily ruin your life with that much info. Then they get you to develop an emotional attachment to some alleged 9 year old (who may or may not exist), then they ask for more "help". Seriously, just be careful. The world is a jungle, and there are plenty of savages roaming the countryside.

There are easier ways to find out about where people live and who their closest friends are than moving to Timor, getting a kid, waiting for him to grow up and be poor and get sponsorship from a richer dude and then scam him of his money 10 years after the project began.

[Theif of Time]

Why not just print out this thread and send it to him?

Make up some stuff. Generic things. Like "I live in a big city and there are lots of people and we get all our food imported from farmers like you for 2c a truckload."
except maybe leave out that last part.

[Pandagirl!]

Aww you have a sponsered child too? I found a picture of mine on my computer

Hmm when I write letters, I usually just talk about random stuff, like what I did that day, what life is like here, how she liked the last package of stuff we sent her, and etc etc.

[Fit of Rage]

And when she's 18 you can look her up on www.wives.ru

Epi said something amusing? It's a miracle!