Last week I wrote about the iniquities of email and the drivel everyone gets sent on a routine basis. This week I'm sitting in front of my screen, blitzed by a voice that has come echoing out my past via the Internet. Some four years ago, shortly after finishing college, I decided to swop my Manolo Blahniks for a pair of Birkenstocks and head off to Central America to work in an orphanage.
Now, with a mind full of nightclub openings, shopping must-haves and holiday options, it sometimes seems very far away. But, now and then, a glimpse of a bold toddler on Grafton Street or the smell of dripping foliage or the taste of refried beans will take me straight back to life in the Guatemala jungle.
Casa Guatemala, as the orphanage was called, was not the best organised of places - children were constantly about to fall into swamps or toddle into the sty of Guapo, the ugly big boar, or play that fun game called "Throw Rosa off the Pier".
But, essentially, it was a hugely happy place, full of shrieks and food fights and toys made out of sticks and chewing gum. This was all the more remarkable given the background of many of the children. Guatemala has an appalling record on human rights and some of the worst treatment is dished out to the hundreds of street children. The luckier ones ended up in Casa Guatemala, an independent place which answered to neither church nor state.
With every child toting a story that could make your stomach clench, it's hard to understand how the months I spent working at Casa Guatemala were quite so happy. Children tend to give a lot more than they ever take, and these children, who had nothing but a basic diet, bamboo hut dorms and some choice swear words, tended to give a lot more love than they ever took from us.
So, my stomach sank and twisted again when, among the notes from friends and the bad jokes that comprise my Monday morning emails, there was one passed on from Casa Guatemala. Written in strangled English by Angie, the director of the orphanage, there is panic in every line. On July 11th, Guatemala was convulsed with an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale which trembled on for many hours.
Still, as earthquakes go, it was not a particularly newsworthy one - only one death was reported, although several more were injured. But, for Casa Guatemala, perched on stilts over the Rio Dulce, it was lethal. Angie's email was a litany of grief: "The dormitories is all destroyed, the kitchen is gone, the stores are gone, the main septic tank got broken, the clean water pipes got broken . . ."
The long list of absence rambled on but, happily, there is no mention of any children lost or injured. Yet, it ends with a chilling note, "if we don't do something, the children will have to go back to the government and eventually will end on the streets."
How do you reconcile something like this with a morning spent flicking through Vogue and thinking over the weekend? How can I justify the fact that I not only have a flat full of cupboards of food and unnecessary clothes, but also a family full of love at the end of a phone line? Like many people who are doing well out of Ireland these days, I have a residual sense of guilt. It's strong enough to make me give money to beggars on St Stephen's Green but not quite strong enough that I give too much of my time for practical help or campaigning. I'm obviously not alone in this feeling. In a piece in Tuesday's Irish Times, several of Ireland's charities including Simon, St Vincent de Paul and Barnardos sent up a smoke signal. Young people just aren't volunteering to work any more, with Simon's volunteer numbers slackening off from 1994, coinciding with the up-turn in the Irish economy.
There is, of course, a certain inevitability to this. As we all become terribly busy being busy, and busy keeping ahead of other people who just might be busier than us, there just isn't time to put in time at the Oxfam shop. Nor do I want to join the leagues of head-shakers and tut-tut-ers, who see every sign of vibrancy and progress as a sign that the youth of today has been out dancing with the devil at midnight.
But we will have to do something that neither compromises the rush towards our bright new future nor collapses into criticism of our own forwardness. While volunteering is a brilliant plan, the simple truth is that not many people have the time or the temperament for it. I've always held that it's probably a better idea for us all to do the jobs we do best, and throw lots of money in the direction of deserving charities.
While I enjoyed my time in Casa Guatemala, it was not a well-run volunteer charity like APSO. I was yet another person who came and went from these childrens' lives, another mouth to feed and another rather over-extended Western ego who thought she could save the world. My job could have been performed with much more efficiency by someone local who was paid for the month with what I could earn in a day.
But that kind of self-imposed taxation, just doesn't seem to be happening either - the level of donations to charities has not fallen over the past five years but it has remained static while income levels have increased. We live in an age when guilt has become a dirty word, and quite rightly if it has the words "Catholic", "maternal" or "food-related" in front of it. But, every now and then, a dose of it is quite a good idea. Certainly, it is the main emotion that will cause me to take out my cheque book and send off some money to help put Casa Guatemala back on stilts. If you fancy doing the same, send your money to: Casa Guatemala Fund, Lloyds TSB, 19 Arrowe Park Road, Upton Wirral, Merseyside CH49 0UB, UK. Branch code 30-15-52, A/c