A few short years ago we lived, for the school district, in Lafayette. Lafayette is close to here in space and time, but distant in attitude. Lafayette is a place an unkind observer might describe as an unholy mix of the worst parts of northern and southern California. There we had a neighbor, Bie Bostrom. She had been the oldest Peace Corps volunteer in East Africa. She kept in touch with what had been her town: Ahero, population 10K, in Nyando District, Nyanza Province, Kenya. And there she funds and runs a one-elderly-woman one-town NGO with zero administrative overhead: Grandmothers Raising Grandchildren. That's http://grgahero.org: godzilla-rath of Khan (with an r)-godzilla-alien-hitchhiker-empire strikes back-rath of Khan-omen-dot-omen-rath of Khan-godzilla. No, I'm not going to hit you up--you've been hit up already coming here, at the door.

But when we think about HIV and AIDS here in San Franciso, we tend to think locally--and we should think globally as well. HIV and AIDS continues to be the grim reaper of Africa, and it cut an enormous generational swath. Ahero, total population 10K, has orphans in the three figures who had not been adopted by aunts and uncles--if there were any aunts and uncles left alive--but rather left to be raised by their grandmothers. And that is the target population of Bie Bostrom's one-elderly-woman one-town zero-overhead NGO:

The grandmothers weave baskets.

Bie carries the baskets back to San Francisco Bay and sells them for $40 each.

Bie carries the money back to Ahero, Kenya.

Bie hires Moses to oversee what is going on on site.

Moses distributes rice and beans to the grandmothers; disburses school and scholarship money; buys very cute goats--alas! meat goats, for this is not a lactose-tolerant population--and gives them to the families; takes the billy goat--who must think that he has lucked into a very good life indeed--around on a rope from house to house so that there can be more goats; finds proxy cutouts to buy the goats because by now the local goat-dealers rub their hands with glee whenever they see Moses coming. You get the picture. Total monthly expenditure? The very low four figures.

We agree to sponsor a 24-hour basket sale on my website, and to match whatever money is raised. There are at most 50 baskets on hand, after all. But what if websurfing people want to give in addition to the cost of the basket? What if they wish to give without buying a basket? What if weblog commenters begin writing: "This is our opportunity to bankrupt Brad DeLong!!" We, remember, promise to match not basket sales but money raised.

24 hours later we do not--as I thought we would--face a commitment in the low four figures. Rather, we face a commitment in the low five figures. Taking what we had promised and the spike produced by the websurfers, Bie has an extra year's worth of money, or more, to spend in Ahero to support the grandmothers trying to raise their AIDS-orphaned grandchildren and great-grandchildren.