USAID

The week of July 12th I started working with USAID. I am super interested in this agency and feel so lucky that I had the chance to do some work for them and get to know staff members and ask millions of questions. Curt, the Mission Director, is amazing. He has had a really impressive and accomplished career and everyone really respects him. Also, every time I have talked to him I have been really impressed with how intelligent and insightful he is. The kind of person I feel as if I could just stand next to long enough maybe some of his knowledge might just accidently drift into my head.

Anyway I met with him and he asked me to do research on options for country-owned sustainable health financing in Malawi, with a specific focus on HIV/AIDS treatment. I don’t have any education in public health, however I am fairly comfortable with policy research so I agreed (plus I am really intimidated by him so I probably would have said yes to any topic).

I also met with Patrick, the Program Officer, who I have met at lots of social events previously. Patrick is really “cool” and fun and smart. It was weird being with him in such a professional setting and seeing how dynamics change in the office. He asked me to go on site visits with Archangel (yes, that is a guy’s real name) as he did data quality assessments. My role would be to use the USAID standard checklist to evaluate how the programs we visited incorporated gender.

Both of these projects turned out to be awesome. I got to visit projects from several big-time NGOs that are working in Malawi. I loved asking questions about gender, which sparked really interesting conversations about at what point is it appropriate to challenge local culture to promote gender equity.

I also really got into the research that Curt gave me. I contacted USAID staff in several different countries in Africa asking their opinion about health financing. I also found a lot of interesting methods that are being used to financing health throughout the continent. I worked on this project for 3 weeks and finally presented it to Curt the week of July 26th.

When I walked into Curt’s office for our meeting I was surprised to see that he had printed off the paper I sent him and had clearly read the whole thing and had taken notes in the margins. We had a wonderful conversation and Curt posed some really insightful questions about the whole issue. He also told me about when he used to work in Rwanda, and we talked a little about the research I had done on Rwanda for my senior capstone. I felt really lucky to have been able to talk to someone so experienced about the development topics that I am so passionate about. Anyway at the end of our conversation he asked me to present my research to a group of mission employees on August 11th. I am so excited and twice as nervous!

Zambia

We didn’t have work the 5th or 6th of July. The US Embassy took July 5th off because July 4th landed on a Sunday, and July 6th is Malawi’s Independence Day, so we take that off too. Molly and I used the short week as an excuse to go on safari in Zambia

To be honest I wasn’t exactly out-of-my-mind excited about it. First of all it was kind of expensive. Second, I went on an amazing safari a couple years ago in the Serengeti and felt as though there was no way that this safari could top it. Third, while I think animals look cool I don’t think I get the same enjoyment out of staring at them as some people do. Fourth, safaris mean sitting in cars for a long time and not really moving for several days. Fifth, there is something kind of stereotypical and colonial about putting on khakis, hanging out with a bunch of white people, and paying Africans to point out their homeland to me.

Anyway, all that said it was a pretty cool experience. The first night I woke up and looked out my tent to see a hippo probably less than two feet from my head. It was just chillin’ and eating grass right next to my tent. I woke up about an hour later to see an elephant and its baby stroll by.

Independence Days

This weekend was full of parties. On Friday night there was an official party at the Ambassador’s house for July 4th. Important people in the Malawian government, other embassies, and big NGOs came. It was very glamorous and people brought around endless trays of wine and finger foods. I had a good time talking to a very diverse group of people. When I finally left the Ambassador’s house I went to a bar appropriately named Diplomats. It was Molly (my roommate), Doug (Facilities Management Officer, State), Youseff (USAID), Jason (Peace Corp staff), and I. Molly and Doug left early but the rest of us stayed and watched Ghana vs. Uruguay. The bar was packed with people. Everyone was supporting Ghana, hoping that an African team would prevail. However, as you know, Ghana lost and the whole crowd let out groan. I think the night might have turned out more lively had Ghana won. After the game we when to a night club and danced and danced and danced.

The next day we had the July 4th party for all Americans in Malawi. Again it was held at the Ambassador’s house. It was full of US Mission people, Peace Corp volunteers, and the occasional cluster of religious missionaries and NGO staff. It was a fun family-friendly event with face painting and cheeseburgers and a proliferation of American flags. After cleaning up the party a small group of State Department people stayed and drank and talked with the Ambassador. It was a nice atmosphere and really fun to have more in-depth conversations with these people and hear stories from their past posts.

Northern Malawi

The week of June 28 I traveled to Northern Malawi to review projects that have sent in applications for the Ambassador’s Self Help fund. This fund supports community initiatives that are aimed at increasing social or economic welfare. I am traveling with an FSN (foreign service national) named Victoria who is the project manager for the Self Help program.

I woke up Sunday morning at my house in Lilongwe and went jogging through the neighborhood and down this lovely dirt path that has a great view of the surrounding mountains. Victoria and Kenan (the driver) arrived to pick me up. We drove for almost an hour when I remembered that I forgot my wallet with all my money and my bank card. So we turned around, picked up my wallet, and set out again. We drove for about 4.5 hours and reached Mzuzu. There we had a quick pit stop and I bought the largest avocado I have ever seen. Another couple hours later we reached Karonga where we will be staying for two nights.

The next morning we drove from over two hours (mostly on a thin and pot-holed dirt road) to reach the first site. The road was gorgeous and twisted past Lake Malawi and up florescent green mountains. We saw a small twister on the lake that shot down from a heavy dark cloud. The car jostled from rut to rut. We saw groups of baboons clustered on the side of the road.

The site was a primary school on the very top of one of the mountains. The vista was beautiful and displayed the lake on one side and rolling mountains covered in crops wrapped around to form the rest of the view. The community had built the school because the next school was so far away that many children weren’t attending school. There were two dilapidated, dirt floor, thatched-roofed, brick structures that the students were currently learning in. There were only a couple makeshift wood benches enough for a few students to sit on. The community wanted Self Help funds to erect better school blocks that could keep the kids dry during rainy season and create a better environment for them to learn.

We visited many projects throughout the week. Several more for school blocks. One of the communities that proposed a school block project had 8 children hit by cars in the last couple years. A closer primary school would prevent them from having to walk so far on the busy road. Another project for school blocks was at a school for deaf children. It was a really interesting school that took kids from all over the country, taught them language skills, and worked to ready them for secondary school. Before we left they preformed a dance for us. We also visited project proposals for a family planning and maternal health clinic, HIV/AIDS meeting house, library, and water system. On Thursday I took the bus home from Mzuzu because I needed to be in Lilongwe for the embassy’s July 4th celebrations. Victoria and Kennan stayed because there were still more sites to visit.

Nice to meet you Mr. President

This last week I was in the consular’s office. The Consular Officer, Peter, loves his job and was more that eager to share his experiences with me. I did visa interviews, processed passports, got materials ready for the US citizens services desk that will be at the 4th of July event, and visited airline offices to pass out passport inspection materials. The foreign service national (FSN) in the consular’s office is Davis. He is a really fun guy and we had a good time joking around and discussing cases with Peter.

On Monday night Molly and I were invited to the Ambassador’s house for a reception for a organization called Women’s Campaign International (WCI). WCI is an organization that promotes women’s participation in democracies around the world. They support political campaigns and provide resources and training for female candidates in the developing countries. They also promote women’s related issues like family planning and maternal health. Upon arrival I met the Ambassador for the first time. He had been away preparing for his next post in Iraq. I also met the current First Lady of Malawi who was absolutely elegant. Later that evening I had a wonderful conversation with the long-time girlfriend of the former long-time president, Banda.

Also this week Molly and I went out often we Doug, the Facilities Management Officer (FMO) and the newly arrived Secret Service members. The Secret Service was here preparing for the upcoming visit of Bill Clinton. The former president is in South Africa attending some World Cup games and planned to come and visit Malawi to see the projects that the Clinton Foundation is doing here. All the Secret Service people are really fun and we always had a good time going out and drinking and talking and laughing.

Peter is also doubling as the Regional Security Officer (RSO) because the RSO is out of the country. Therefore, he was responsible for coordinating with the Secret Service to plan the security for the visit, and by extension, I got to witness the preparations. It was absolutely fascinating to see all the background work that goes behind one visit. I feel really lucky to have been able to see something so hidden from the view of most people.

Friday brought even more excitement. I arrived at work early that morning and got in an embassy car to join the police-led motorcade to the airport. On the way we picked up the Secret Service agents from their hotel. We waited at the airport for almost two hours and then the plan came. I walked out to the tarmac and then President Clinton came out of the plane. Peter shook his hand and then introduced me. Bill Clinton asked me about my internship and where I go to school and where I am from. I think I answered all of those questions correctly….but I was really nervous so who knows.

After the former president left for his visits, Peter and I took the passports of everyone that was on the plane and made sure that were stamped and the entry cards were filled out. Later that night we went back to the airport (this time joined by Molly, the Political Officer, the Ambassador, and his wife). We stood by the plane and got pictures with Bill Clinton. Then, he actually stayed and talked to us for awhile about Africa and development and agriculture……it was awesome.

Down South

We (Mayeso, the driver and I) left for Blantyre in the afternoon. The drive is just a few hours but I slept the entire way. I suppose I will still getting over some jet lag. We got to Blantyre in the early evening and got some pretty good pizza. The next morning we went from news station to new station picking up reporters. Once the car was full we headed for Malanje.

We visited a bird’s eye chili farmer’s cooperative. ADF, in partnership with the Malawian government, helped provide funds for the cooperative to start a factory. There, they turn the chili’s into higher-value products. This increases the incomes of the small farmers and provides more jobs for community members.

When we drove in a group of about 30 women were standing in a circle singing and dancing. As we got out of the car they turned toward us and sang to us. It was fantastic! Mayeso showed me how to use the embassy’s camera while we waited for the ADF Chairman, Jack Leslie, and staff to arrive. It would be my responsibility to take pictures of the event that could be used in news coverage.

The Chairman finally arrived with his two kids and the Malawi Program Director. Jack Leslie’s kids are both in college (one is a freshman and the other a senior). They have the good fortune of being able to accompany their dad as he does a tour of ADF’s programs throughout Africa. Both of them were really nice and excited to be longer for the ride.

The program in Malanje was full of photo ops. and tours of the factory and speeches and press interviews and gift giving. However, it was also punctuated with choreographed dances and songs. All of the performances were mini-dramas with a plot and usually some detectable social message.

That night I went with Mayeso to a local resturante and had insima for the first time. Any of you who read my Uganda blog will remember the cultural staple called Matoke. Well, encima is the Malawi’s Matoke. It is a white mush made from maize that you work between your fingers until it’s a good scope for picking up the other items on your plate. I had it with beans and it was pretty good.

On the way home the next morning we stopped on the side of the road and the driver bought mice on a stick. Apparently this is also a common Malawian food. I will try it eventually, but today wasn’t the day.

Its time for Africa

Here I am again. Another summer and another attempt to write a blog. I have a computer at my home, so I can write often. However since I can’t transfer documents to Embassy computers for security reasons, I can only post when I have time to get to an internet café. However, I hope to be able to blog at least once a week…..we will see!

Already this experience is vastly different from working in Uganda and Fiji. First of all, all logistics were set before I came. Another intern (Molly) and myself stay a HUGE house. I have a real mattress for the first time in two yeas. Beat that air mattress! The kitchen has a refrigerator, microwave, and oven. And…can you believe it….I have hot water! What is more, the State Department has a car service that takes us where we need to be. I have been eating well too. There are several nice restaurants in Lilongwe that my colleagues have been nice enough to take me to. All of this is wonderful, but makes me feel disconnected from the people here.

Monday was my first day of work. It was an absolute whirlwind. We started the morning by talking to human resources and the medical office. We also met with the Political, Economic, and Public Affairs officers who gave us an introduction to their jobs and their staff. Then we met with the Deputy Chief of Mission, who is now the acting ambassador while the Ambassador is away from Malawi. Everyone was extremely nice and void of the kind of pompous you might expect from diplomats.

The most exciting part of the day came when the Public Affairs officer came in and asked if I wouldn’t mind traveling to Malanje the following day to help set things up for a visit from the African Development Fund Chairman. Of course I would!

The African Development Fund (ADF) is a government agency started over 30 years ago to implement community-driven development projects. They have a unique niche because their budget is neither the gargantuan size of USAID or the feeble size of grassroots NGOs. Thus, they can fund projects in the middle that often get overlooked. Also, ADF is one of the first larger organizations to use participatory methods, which means that communities are highly engaged in designing and implementing projects.

The Chairman of the Board will go to Malanje to do a site visit and see possibilities for new projects. I will go there with Mayeso, who is one of the staff members in Public Affairs. We will gather journalists and transport them to the site. Aparently, you have to provide transport for journalists in Malawi if you want coverage, because budgets are so small.

A few of our projects

Our team has done an incredible job of getting projects off the ground. Project setup is always an arduous task, especially in a new culture with different concepts of time. However, the volunteers have managed to get things rolling and the last couple weeks have been really exciting.

Stoves: We built our 2nd stove in the Nabuna Village. This one went MUCH more smoothly than the first. We met with a group of about 15 women and talked with them about the advantages of cooking with an enclosed stove with a chimney. Then, we built the stove together. Luckily, Nabuna has a pond surrounded by clay, so the women had all of the clay ready before we arrived. These women are motivated and proactive, and consistently asked us questions to ensure they understood the construction process. In particular, the wife to the speaker of the village, Calara, was incredibly enthusiastic. She explained that this project was so important to her and her friends, because they can build the stoves on their own, and need not rely on their husbands.

We planned to start our 3rd stove with a women’s group in Tavua Levu this Monday. However, when we showed up we discovered that the clay they had gathered was actually dirt (the word for clay in Fijian is the same word as dirt). I spent most of that day on a treasure hunt for clay around the river, the train tracks, and the site where they used to make bricks. All searching was in vain. Finally, we visited Nabuna Village and asked to use some of their clay. They agreed and we built the stove on Tuesday in about 2 hours.

Business: We are working with small groups of individuals in the villages and in town to start small businesses or improve the small businesses they may have. We have quickly discovered that a major need in Fiji is learning saving and personal finance. Because people are so communal and generous, they often give money as soon as they accumulate it. Therefore, they don’t keep savings in case of hard-times or to invest in the future. Volunteers mold lessons around the participants and then mentor them individually to implement concepts that are taught.
Being in this culture has made me rethink the traditional model of business training. In America, we emphasize self-reliance and individual initiative. However, here those values seem anti-social and greedy. And, I have to agree that the Western model encourages self-interest often at the expense of social values. I am starting to favor more cooperative models that might better fit this culture, where village members would have a stake in the business and the profits could benefit the whole.

Gardening: Nate, Bryce, and Jacob have really become excited about teaching basic gardening techniques. They have done some gardens with the men in Rukuruku Village, who have been really proactive about duplicating the gardens throughout the village and incorporating traditional methods with the new techniques. Nico, an outgoing and fun-loving man, has agreed to come with us to other villages and teach the method.

Health: A lot of our volunteers are majoring in public health and have been able to use their knowledge. People here have been extremely excited about learning different aspects of health (First Aid, family planning, nutrition). Volunteers have been creating lessons based on the participants.

Schools: Maria, Libbie, and Piper are three young girls who have just finished their first year of university. They have absolutely astounded me at how proactive they have been about getting tutoring programs in the schools setup. We work one-on-one with struggling kids, mostly on reading comprehension. They are also talking about implementing short lessons on life-skills (relationships, drug abuse, sex, anger management, goal-setting etc)

Staying Young

Friday night we decided to go to Betham Cottage that the woman had told us about earlier that day. We took a public bus to Rakiraki where we had planned to take taxis to the Ellington Warf. But since the bus driver had run his last route of the day he offered to take us to the Warf for cheaper than we could go by taxi. Being the only passengers on board, our transport turned into a party bus as we danced and sang to a random mix of 90s American pop, Island Reggae, and hip hop.

When we reached the Warf it was dark, raining heavily, and the boats that were supposed to meet us were nowhere in sight. We huddled together trying to shield each other from the rain. Finally, a slender Fijian man engulfed by a yellow plastic fisherman’s coat pulled into the bank on a small motorboat. He was followed by Rob, the six year-old New Zealand hostel manager I had spoken with on the phone. He was also wearing a yellow coat which just covered soaked gray sweat shorts. Rob’s boat was even smaller than the first and fit only Piper, Heather, David, and I. We were offered yellow coats to share and the boats pushed off into the choppy sea. Our boat made painfully slow progress as the motor whined and spat and started over the waves. Rob made small talk and randomly stated that he knew where we were going. He stopped every so often, attempting to pull something out of the engine. In the middle of at forced conversation about Fiji travel, Rob made an announcement, “I have a weak bladder. I just going to slow down the boat and point myself over the edge if you don’t mind.” David squeezed my leg to keep from laughing as Rob turned around and started to whistle.

We were met at the beach by two Fijian women who directed us to wash our feet, showed us our rooms, and made us dinner. We spent Saturday at the resort sunbathing, swimming, and gazing at fish.

By Saturday night we were back in Tavua and a group of us attended the first birthday of our friend Susana’s daughter. It was an elaborate gathering of at least 150 people, festive mats, multi-colored decorations, balloons, noise-makers, and a huge feast. We sat cross-legged on the mat and ate until the kids came over and got Tori, David, Sara, Natalie, and Bre to dance with them. The women pushed them towards the middle of the mat and they soon became the sole form of entertainment for the night.

Maria and I slipped out with one of the nurses from the hospital who invited us to drink kava at her cousin’s house. I sat next to a gray-hair round Fijian man who kept teasing one of the younger men about his wife. When I asked him what the banter was over he exclaimed, “I’m always funny. That’s why I’m young”. He proceeded to tell me about his life. He had never went to school past the 6th grade because he had to cut sugar cane to support his family of 5 younger siblings and parents who unable to work. He told me he was smart and learned construction and hunting and fishing through observing. He had helped build the fruit market in the center of town. He remembers well the days of colonialism and exploitation. He talked of more recent things and ended his story with some joke about birds or women that I didn’t understand.

Adventures in Stove-Making

Thursday we began building an adobe stove at Rusila’s house in Tavua Levu Village. Since Tori (volunteer who came with me to Uganda last year) and I are the only ones who are trained on the method, we decided to build a practice stove at Rusila’s to train everyone else. In addition, we wanted to work out all of the challenges that would inevitably come with building the stoves in a new culture and climate.

We began digging and sorting clay, setting the banana stock pipes, and filling the stove. As the day wore on, the clay pit began drying up, and we found ourselves running very short on the most essential ingredient. Some of Rusila’s nieces took us to different spots where we might find clay. Finally, they brought us to a pond where they used to make bricks. We felt the mud at the bank, which was stickier than regular mud. Desperate, we waded through lake and start throwing globs of river mud into potatoe sacks. My legs were buried up to my mid-calf in lake mud, holding me steady as I felt for and pulled out the most clayish portions. The young kids jumped in started helping. They would bring the clay to me for quality control before they dumped it into the bag.

The bags were ridiculously heavy and when we dumped them out next to the stove, we all laughed pitifully as we came to the realization that the brown gunk was not clay. The sun was beginning to set, so we sent a group back to the original clay pit to excavate what they could and worked feverishly to finish before dark. In order to the fill the stove we began pulled clay from the sides and regions of the stove that seemed less necessary, literally cutting corners to make the clay stretch further. The sun set with the stove unfinished, and we reluctantly planned to come back the following morning to finish. We talked with the village women who were helping us and asked if they could think of anywhere else that we might find clay. They agreed to take us somewhere new in the morning.

On Friday morning at 6:00 David, Bre, Kirsten, Sara, Nate, his wife Cami, and I rolled out of the house and back to the stove. Rusila and her nine year-old cousin, John, led us down unused train tracks to a section where large banks of mud had been overturned. We dug through it and found random clumps of clay and filled our bags with it. We had arranged for a truck to come pick up the load, but before it arrived Kirsten left for a vacation she was taking with a group of our volunteers, Rusila left for a trip to Suva, and Nate and Cami left to teach gardening at Yauladrou.

David, Bre, Sara, and I sat on the tracks for at least an hour throwing clumps of mud into puddles and talking about life and Fiji and poverty and relationships. Finally, we realized the truck wasn’t coming and David set off to find some sort of transport for the clay. As soon as he left a women motioned us to come to her home.

It was a lovely place just outside the village which had obviously been landscaped with great care. She had us sit on a damp pink plush cushion and served us delicious mango juice. She was more well-off than the nearby village-dwellers and was intent on us understanding this distinction as she named the white-collar occupations of her neighbors (policemen, nurses, and teachers). She told us about the husband who had left her and the son who had mixed with the wrong crowd and ended up in jail. We finished covering the major events of our lives, just as David called wondering where we were. As we hurried out of her yard she suggested we stay at Betham Cottage, a beach resort on a nearby island that night.

When we got back to the stove, we were glad we hadn’t decided to just finish it the night before. In the light we could see how ridiculous it looked with the random bore holes we had made the night before. With a fresh supply of clay we filled them in and began filling the rest of the stove. Nate, Cami, Tori, Natalie, and Heather joined us as they had finished their work at Yauladrou. Soon after it began to pour rain. Frantically, we grabbed tarps which the kids held at the corners as David, Nate, Tori, and I crouched and packed the increasingly wet clay that the others were tirelessly bringing to us. Nate drilled holes in the frame to drain off the water and we scooped handfuls of water from the top to avoid all our work being in vain.
At last we finished, covered the stove with tarps, and stood in the rain taking inventory of how dirty we were. Someone through a fistful of mud and almost instinctively all of our volunteers began chucking mud at each other. The kids laughed and squealed with excitement and joined in. After some time the kids began running towards the river, pulling us along. Our step crescendoed to a full sprint along the train tracks until we came to the bridge and jumped into the river.