The Hatchet #3

"Treasure. Unbelievable riches. He could not believe the contents of the survival pack" (Paulson 171).

Every year the United States spends millions of dollars on aid for other countries in need. But does it have the same impact it did on Brian? Throughout the book, Brian did everything from scratch. He made fire from rocks. He made bows and arrows from trees and stones. He made shelter from the nature around him. Everything he did was natural and was completely his own. When the survival pack came, Brian almost didn't like. At first, he couldn't believe how much there was and how easy it would've been to survive. But then he started wondering if the survival pack took anything away from him. He began feeling detached from nature and from everything he accomplished. Is it the same way with the rest of world? The United States seems to just dump aid on all these different, seemingly aid hungry places. Do the people and villages that had survived on their own with no outside help feel as though the aid is helping them, or taking things away? I'm sure in some aspects, aid is helping people survive, but in other ways it may be taking away from the traditions of villages. The United States needs to pay more attention to the distribution of aid and make sure that our aid is going where it's needed and not necessarily where it's accepted.