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Our Spoiled Sweet 16er is now a 20 year old college sophomore majoring in global studies. Ava says she loves to travel and experience new cultures. She’s even been to Third World countries … but always travels first class and stays in high-end hotels.

Ava is ‘exiled’ to the remote jungles of Thailand. Her mom hopes this field trip will teach Ava to be self-sufficient and understand what life is like outside of Beverly Hills. Ava is confident that she can handle anything Thailand has to offer.

Wrong!

Ava was not prepared for this trip. She behaved very badly in my opinion. She was rude, disrespectful and made little effort to learn about these people who embraced her. She did not have a ‘change of heart’ until the very end of the trip when she learned that she didn’t have to do any manual labor and got to have some fun. Suddenly she was all smiles.

Favorite moment:

Right around this point Ladee, Ava’s host sister, had enough of her complaining and told her to ’shut up’. The look on Ava’s face was priceless. I think that may have been the first time in her life that someone had said that to her.

Am I the only one that finds it odd that in many of these third world countries, there is no electricity or running water but the people have cell phones? Who are they talking to?

Based on what was shown on TV, I do not feel that Ava learned much from this trip. Oh wait! I forgot, she was inspired to donate some of her clothes to charity. She also had a moment of honesty when she said that while Global Studies is what she wants to pursue, she does not want to roll up her sleeves and work directly with helping people. She wants to do something easy like donate money or educate others on the world’s plights.

When I read about how desperate the people are in the area that Ava visited and then think about how much time was devoted to Ava acting like a small child, I am left with a bad taste in my mouth.