SAFARI in the Masai Mara...Another Dream Come True!!!

As most of you already knew, part of my dream of coming to Africa most certainly included me on an African Safari…well, another dream came true! I just returned back to Malawi after a safari in the middle of the Masai Mara in Kenya. WOW!!! There really are no words to accurately describe this experience. I can put it best by saying…I’ve never felt so ALIVE in my 23 years of living. You all know that feeling—when your heart pounds rapidly out of your chest, your butterflies fly rampantly around in your belly, your blood zooms hurriedly through your veins, and your thoughts spin wildly out of control… Now, take the feeling you know inside of you and multiply it by 1,000, and you might just begin to get a slight idea…

There is something about seeing your first lion in the wild that brings this feeling rushing over you! The first time I saw a lion, we were able to drive up to about 4 feet from the King and 2 queens of the jungle, who were all sleeping due to a recent feast on their proudly slain zebra (also only a couple of feet away from me). I watched them sleeping for quite some time, then they woke up, stared straight into my eyes for what seemed like days, then came walking slowly to my car. Can you say petrified??? Wow!!!

I saw everything up close—from zebras, giraffes, and hippos…to hyenas, lions, and cheetahs…to jackals, elands, and topi…to mongeese, wart hogs, and meer cats…to baboons, crocodiles, and wildebeest…and so many more wonderful species of Africa. I was also extremely fortunate to be in the Mara at the time of the great migration…thousands of wildebeest and zebra moving north because of the rains…the 8^th wonder of the world. I was even luckier to see the migration crossing the Masai Mara River, dodging the teeth of crocodiles and hippos. National Geographic, Animal Planet material times 500!

I stayed at a wonderful camp (Serian Camp) right over the Masai Mara River, where the hippos like to bath during the day. Then at night, the hippos retreat on land into the bushes. Needless to say, I could hear the hippos snorting all through the night as they walked past my tent into the bushes. Another completely petrifying moment was when a lion (or leopard, we’re not quite sure) walked right past my tent, and decided to purr, grumble, and give a slight roar right into my delicate canvass tent. Holy moly!!! Fortunately, my Masai guard (armed with a machete and a spear) was hiding out in my outdoor bathroom just in case. Ha ha ha!!! WHOA!!! Hearing the grumbles and watching the silhouette move slowly past my tent now constitutes the coolest 3 minutes of my life!

One of my favorite parts of my safari was visiting a nearby traditional Masai village. For those of you who have never been to Africa, the images in your mind of what you think Africa and its people look like is typified in these Masai villages—brightly colored cloths for clothing, bright and elaborate beaded jewelry/headwear, singing, dancing, jumping, feathered crowds for the village chief, and spears for protecting the village against the evils of the lion, leopard, and the like. The bright colors are amazing, the Masai people’s bone structures are incredible, the jewelry is so cool…all in all, the Masai people are the most BEAUTIFUL people I have ever seen in my life!!!

Wow! Am I dreaming? Somebody wake me up please…

Reflections on My Beloved Neno...

My IPSP was absolutely amazing—I loved Malawi, I loved all of the Malawian people, and I loved my work! On top of all this, I benefited from my IPSP so much more than I had imagined. I was definitely pushed to my limit and presented with new, interesting challenges. My capabilities were stretched, and my communication and leadership styles were tested. But everyday in Malawi I learned an incredible amount about myself, about humanity, about development, about the interconnectivity of all the world’s social problems, and so much more. Every single day in Malawi, I was stimulated, motivated, inspired, fulfilled, and educated.

I benefited from my IPSP in a number of ways, both short term and long term, both professionally and personally. I had never been a part of an integrated development effort in a developing country. So, for starters, I learned an enormous amount on how to effectively enter a country, work with other organizations and institutions, and catalyze sustainable economic growth. In my original IPSP Analysis, I hypothesized that my time in Malawi would educate me on how development programs are integrated across sectors, how to best approach social problems in a holistic, integrated way, and how to make these efforts scalable and sustainable by partnering with governments, other organizations, and communities. I did learn all of these things, but in very different ways than I had originally anticipated.

In the middle of my IPSP, I really started to feel as though I had a good grasp of the integrated development approach. After this realization, I immediately began to analyze the application of this approach by CHDI with a very critical eye. The more I learned, the more critical I became, and the more I realized that this fully integrated approach is so much more difficult than anyone realizes (even those working on development everyday). Although CHDI is not the perfect example (yet) of this integrated approach, I still learned a tremendous amount of what this type of approach requires and the difficulties that are likely to materialize along the way. I also learned a lot about developing successful collaborations and responding to market realities, both of which will inevitably help me in my career.

On a more personal note, I was correct in my IPSP Analysis in that this experience has definitely changed me as a person forever. My time in Malawi gave me a much broader perspective on the world and my place in it. Living amidst some of the world’s most devastating social problems, I became very in touch with the problems of the world. My own personal contributions to the global poverty trap also became frighteningly obvious. I became more in touch with humanity, and my compassion for others around the world most certainly intensified. Working with the Clinton Foundation, I gained a deeper sense of hope knowing that wonderful organizations are exerting their time, energy, skills, and resources to doing great things to resolve problems around the world. However, I also realized that the devastations of these problems are so much greater than the majority of the world’s population realizes and that resolving these problems is a much more daunting task than anyone is currently capable of realizing completely. I will forever see the world through a new and very different lens.

The Clinton Foundation also benefited much more than I had previously imagined. The Clinton Foundation benefited from my IPSP because of my intense commitment to CHDI’s purpose and goals in Malawi. I remained very flexible and adaptable throughout my entire project and, as a result, I was able to contribute to several areas of CHDI in a meaningful way. I worked very hard on my specific work-related activities, while also staying open to helping CHDI in other arising areas as they needed me. Because Tyler Denton had to travel to the United States for a couple of weeks in the middle of my IPSP, my presence in Neno was critical and invaluable. Along with my project tasks, I made myself immediately available to take on Tyler Denton’s responsibilities in Neno as well, which was extremely helpful. I became the main (on the ground) contact for all of the contractors, architects, Ministry of Public Works officials, construction evaluators, etc. that Tyler had been communicating with regularly regarding the construction of the hospital and twenty-three houses in Neno.

PIH also greatly benefited from my presence in Neno. Because of my flexibility, I was able to work on several more objectives in many different content areas. In my spare time, I helped PIH stock the Neno pharmacy with the necessary HIV, TB, Malaria, etc. medications for thousands of patients. I worked with PIH and the Ministry of Health on the planning and implementation of HIV-VCT trainings in Mwanza. I also helped Dr. Jon Crocker (PIH) in the HIV clinic. In conclusion, all parties involved in my IPSP benefited much more than I had originally predicted.

Before I left for the summer, I was completely prepared to have the best experience of my life. However, my IPSP experience exceeded all expectations and was so much more incredible than I could have ever imagined. I made a significant impact to CHDI and truly loved every minute of my work. My view towards international development work completely changed, and I strongly anticipate that my public service career will revolve around the eradication of poverty. After experiencing what I experienced in Malawi, it is close to impossible that my conscience will ever allow me to focus on any other issue in the world. Before this summer, I was intensely focused on women’s empowerment issues. However, empowering women is worthless if those women are dying because they do not have food to eat or clean water to drink. So many chords inside of me (most of which I never even knew existed) were struck this summer, and I have been changed forever. My entire experience in Neno, Malawi touched my heart in an extremely meaningful and very special way.

So, to all of my friends and loved ones, thank you so very much for everything you have done for me. I have dreamed of living and working in Africa since I was a very small child, and this summer my life-long dream came true. I have truly loved every single second spent here in Malawi, the “Warm Heart of Africa”. Thank you all for shaping me into who I have become—a young woman dedicated to serving others, inspired by places and things that seem to frighten most others, motivated by those who suffer, stimulated by the world’s complexities, angered by the world’s inequalities, and determined to make a difference.

Being placed in the village of Neno for the past couple of months was such a blessing. As Tyler Denton’s new boss (Bono) humbly stated, “there is much more to learn from Africa than there is to teach”. I cannot reiterate enough how accurate this statement truly is. I have learned more meaningful things in the past two months than I have in a lifetime. I learned about myself, the world, my place in the world, development, and so much more. I made incredible friendships with so many people, engaged in very meaningful work, and hopefully made a positive difference to the people of Neno. Nevertheless, what I have gained from my special relationships with the people of Neno has changed me forever and most certainly impacted me in the most positive of ways. I will carry the touching stories of Rose, Janet, Mary, Fortune, Elias, Frank, Dick, and Simeon in my heart for the rest of my life and hopefully someday pass on every wonderful thing they taught me to my children and grandchildren!

Again, thank you all for being who are you to me, thank you for everything you’ve done for me over the years, and thank you for shaping me into who I have become today. I only continue to pray that all of you continue to remain a strong force in my life, shaping me and molding me in the future, just as you have for the past twenty-three years. Thank you all for supporting me in this opportunity of a lifetime. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for your endless support. Thank you for your love. And most of all, thank you for your friendship.

GOD BLESS MALAWI AND GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU!!!

Review of my International Public Service Project...

For the past couple of months, I have been in the Republic of Malawi carrying out my International Public Service Project (IPSP) as part of the curriculum at the Clinton School of Public Service, where I’m currently earning my Masters Degree. My placement was with The William J. Clinton Foundation, more specifically with the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative (CHDI) in the Republic of Malawi. Malawi is a democratic, densely populated country located in the southeastern region of Africa. The national language is Chichewa, although those who are fortunate enough to attend school learn and speak English. Malawi gained its independence from the UK on July 6, 1964. Malawi has a GDP per capita of 596 US dollars, which makes it one of the five poorest countries in the world. Its three most important export crops are tobacco, coffee, tea, and sugar.

For the people fortunate enough to earn a living in Malawi, most are earning between $0.30 and $0.70 cents per day. Subsistence farming is the way of life—people try to grow enough food on their property to feed their families. The life expectancy in Malawi is around thirty-six years old, and the number has been steadily dropping over time due to the country's impoverishment, which is constituted by the following factors: lack of foresight by the government, lack of access to medical care, insufficient nutrition, insufficient school education, low income (less than $1 a day), rapid spread of HIV/AIDS, government economic restrictions, and corruption. Out of every ten children born in Malawi, one does not survive birth. The primary health issues in Malawi are HIV/AIDS (infection rate of 14.2%), Malaria, and water-borne illnesses.

The Clinton Hunter Development Initiative (CHDI) was announced as one of the first commitments at the inaugural meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in September 2005. The Clinton Foundation and the Hunter Foundation (based in Scotland) established CHDI with seed funding of $100 million to be used over 10 years, to develop a self-sustaining, integrated and systemic approach to poverty alleviation. CHDI’s holistic approach integrates four core elements: agriculture (food security), health, clean water and sanitation, and education.

At the Malawian government’s request, CHDI is initially focusing on three districts in Malawi: Chitipa, Dowa, and Neno. My main focus for the summer was working on health and health infrastructure issues in the Neno district, primarily with CHDI’s partnering organization, Partners in Health. CHDI is responsible for the implementation of health-related programs in Malawi, including existing Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) efforts and overall efforts to strengthen the Malawian healthcare system. As part of this effort, Partners in Health (PIH) began working in Malawi with CHDI in the beginning of 2007.

Neno district currently has no hospital. The current health facility is about 2,500 square feet and sees more than two hundred patients everyday, with a staff of three, the most senior of which is the equivalent of a second year medical student in the United States (until the PIH physicians arrived in February 2007). CHDI is working with PIH to expand the district health center to create a district hospital, staffed by PIH physicians and local clinicians, which will have five times as many hospital beds and offer significantly more life-saving health services. The clinic will provide primary care, including care and treatment for HIV, TB, and malaria. CHDI is also funding and managing the construction of twenty-three district hospital staff houses that will be used as incentives to attract good physicians and clinicians to Neno to work in the new district hospital. The Clinton Foundation and Partners in Health are working together with the Malawian Government to build a sixty bed hospital that will employ 150 people, including thirty nurses and fifteen highly educated medical doctors. As many as 100,000 people in the Neno district (and beyond) will have access to free healthcare and free prescription drugs, including ARVs (anti-retroviral) and other first and second-line drugs that fight HIV and AIDS. In order to make sure that the new hospital is staffed by well-trained, government-certified health workers, CHDI and PIH are also building up the capacity of local, trained health workers.

Freedom, Compassion, & HOPE...but the Greatest of these of HOPE!!!

In my Leadership course at the Clinton School, Dr. Bill Grace guided our class in an activity to help us discover our core values in life—the three inner-most values that should guide every decision in our lives. Through this exercise, I learned that my core values are freedom, compassion, and hope. Even though the stakes, circumstances, and risks will always change, I must always uphold these three core values in all that I do. This realization helped make sense of my deepest passions, while also giving me a clear sense of purpose and direction. In the fall of 2006, I dedicated my life to freedom, compassion, and hope and made the commitment to let these values guide all of my decisions in the future. My commitment to these values has overwhelmed me with a sense of peace. Knowing that remaining true to these values will always lead me in the right direction will help make difficult decisions seem easy.

Thanks to Dr. Grace, I knew, from the beginning, that the driving force of my IPSP was hope. I was very excited because I had always wanted to work in Africa, yet I was so scared that I would not be able to help and change things as much as I would like. I was so happy that my life-long dream was coming true, yet so sad that I was inevitably going to have to look into the eyes of all the Malawian children and leave them all in August, knowing that I could not make all of their dreams come true as well. Leaving all of my family and friends and everything else that is comfortable, uncomplicated, and alluring about living in the United States of America was simple. Living in rural Malawi (one of the ten poorest countries in the world), knowing that I could not make every dream of every Malawian I met come true was exceptionally difficult. However, my commitment to hope was my saving grace, and hopefully it will be the Malawian’s saving grace someday as well.

I was intensely committed to helping lift the Malawian people as much as I possibly could. I had come to peace with the fact that even if I failed miserably in my mission, all of the Malawian people (especially the children) would see that someone they do not know, from a small town and a small state very far away, cares about them in an extraordinary way. This realization that people outside of their family, from across the world, care that much about their well-being would hopefully create hope in the hearts of the beautiful Malawian people. Hope is not created through impact measurements, or bricks laid, or negative HIV test results. Hope is created by the most rare human connection of all—people reaching out to people, driven by compassion and sincerity, simply to show that they care. And that is exactly what my IPSP was all about. Once I stumbled upon this gem of truth, I was confident that I would succeed and make a real difference in the lives of the Malawian people. Freedom, compassion, and hope have led me to serve everyday of my life, but this summer hope was my driving force. Now that my IPSP is complete, I reaffirm my previous realization—because of my dedication to creating hope, I did succeed and make a real difference in Malawi.

Sophocles, Locke, King, & MERRY...What Do Ya Know???

My time in Malawi has made me intensely reflect on the ethical theories of several social thinkers, and I have concluded that I span human life’s long timeline by way of my agreement with Sophocles, John Locke, and Martin Luther King, Jr. I believe that a Higher Law definitely exists in societal life. As a social change agent, I will always try to make the world a better place to live and ensure that all human beings are granted their inherent human rights defined by Locke, guided by the principles and values of my Higher moral law. In doing so, I will always check the laws of the state with the principles of my Higher moral law. This curiosity, or questioning the status quo, acts as the catalyst for my deepest passion—social reform.

How do you weigh pain across the human race? Many people in developed countries believe (or try to believe) that pain is weighted differently in Africa and other under-developed parts of the world where poverty and poverty-related death is rampant. Millions of people die of AIDS, Malaria, and other infectious diseases every year. Many people in developed countries accept this as merely the nature of things and attempt to comfort themselves in the thought that people in these parts of the world accept this situation just as they do (as the “nature of things”). As a result, they believe that the pain caused by these deaths is not weighted as heavily as it would be in the United States or anywhere else in the world where this disease-death rate is not nearly as high.

In Mill’s utilitarian theory, everyone’s happiness has the same weight, and everyone’s pain has the same weight. In Appiah’s theory of cosmopolitanism, all people should be valued equally, and we have an equal, moral obligation to all human beings on the planet. I agree with both of these social thinkers. Of course the occurrence of death in Malawi is NO less painful or less significant than it is in the United States. Every human being experiences the same emotions with the same weight. We all have moral responsibilities to every human being we meet, regardless of who they are or where they come from. Valuing all people equally will also increase humans’ capacity to make consistently moral decisions, which is desperately needed now and into the future.

John Locke Would Be Furious...

Every day of my project in Malawi, I found myself pondering inherent human rights and the duties, if any, human beings have to each other here on earth. John Locke believed that human beings are all given inherent rights by God (the right to life, liberty, and property). He also believed that human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance, and we deserve these inherent rights no matter what the circumstance. As a result, the state’s main duty is merely to protect these inherent rights, given to us by a Higher law. Viewing the public problems in Malawi through the lens of John Locke is quite disturbing. The Malawian people are characterized by reason and tolerance (just as everyone born in a developed country where these inherent rights are a given) so they deserve the three inherent human rights. However, thousands of people in Malawi are deprived of all three of these inherent human rights, and unfortunately the government does not have the capacity or the resources to do anything about it.

Malawians are stripped of their right to life by the rampant spread of infectious diseases and poverty and the lack of tools to combat these two deadly weapons. Malawians are stripped of their right to liberty because of their lack of access to education (without knowledge, their freedom becomes more and more limited by the day). Malawians are stripped of their right to property by the lack of access to economic opportunity and/or advancement. According to Locke’s theory, the Malawian Government should be stepping in to solve this disaster of human rights…but this is not happening. They argue that they do not have the capacity or the resources to tackle the vast public problems in Malawi. I would argue (based on the government’s decision to build a brand new multi-million dollar Parliament building) that government corruption is getting in the way of these basic human rights. Fortunately, CHDI is in Malawi fighting for the inherent rights given to every human being on the planet (that these Malawian people are tragically being deprived of). Some people might perceive initiatives like CHDI as a charitable effort, but the truth is that initiatives like the one I worked for this summer are merely a cry for adjustment in morality.

WITCHCRAFT??? I THINK NOT...

John Dewey states that “no man and no mind was ever emancipated merely by being left alone” and that knowledge cooped up in private consciousness is nothing but a myth. Several people in Malawi think that AIDS is caused by witchcraft, and as a result, it is never talked about in public. In relaying these two messages to the HIV/AIDS problem CHDI is addressing in Malawi, it is clear to see that freedom of speech, shared experiences, and the dissemination of intellectual energy is necessary to spark positive social change in this light. Dewey speaks a lot about the importance of knowledge, and even more specifically the importance of sharing and exchanging this knowledge with others. It is by sharing knowledge with other engaging individuals that the public begins to emerge from its shadow and move towards the “free and enriching communion” which is true democracy.

Fortunately, the Malawian Government (the entity which claims political responsibility for this problem) allows for the healthy education and dissemination of knowledge about HIV/AIDS in schools, communities, clinics, etc. Primary schools in Malawi are now teaching children about HIV/AIDS as an important science topic of study. CHDI, PIH, and the Malawian Government are all working together to hold educational training sessions for community members about HIV/AIDS, tests, counseling, treatment, etc. This wide dissemination of knowledge and sharing has been made possible by the collaborations of CHDI, PIH, and the Malawi Ministry of Health, and it is extremely helpful in achieving social change related to the public problem of HIV/AIDS. Generating knowledgeable and meaningful exchanges between people ushers in that feeling of a fraternally shared experience which deeply bonds people on a positive level. These bonds created between people solidify the desire for influential communication, shared knowledge, and a strong identity, thus moving them towards true democracy, bringing into existence the arena for positive social change to occur—to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in Malawi.

The dissemination of knowledge, sparked by PIH, CHDI, and the Ministry of Health will also hopefully create a transcendental collective interest of everyone in Malawi to achieve social change related to HIV/AIDS. Dewey argues that the only possible solution to a public problem such as this one is “the perfecting of the means and ways of communication of meanings so that genuinely shared interests in the consequences of interdependent activities may inform desire and effort and thereby direct action”. Public opinion comes from a common understanding and shared interests emerging from citizen conversations. The dissemination of knowledge and the creation of a transcendental collective interest will hopefully move these citizen conversations in Malawi from silent to public, from mythical to educational.