Proud to Be a Girl

Earlier this month a certain girl in Lugazi, Uganda (let us call her Sara) declared, “I curse the day I was born a girl.”

Why?

Sara was born the eldest of 5 children, her father died last year, and her mother is HIV position. There is no money for clothes or shoes or school supplies. Also, there is no money for sanitary pads. (Men, try to stay with me!).

As almost any woman can attest, feminine hygiene products are something you take for granted, that is, until the moment you need them and don’t have them. For a young girl in Uganda this lack of access is not only uncomfortable, humiliating, and unhygienic – it also keeps you from school several days a month. This is one of the reasons girls in Uganda drop out of secondary school at a much higher rate than boys read more here. Amidst these problems, this young lady is being pressured not by one random creeper, but by four different men who say they will give her money and other goods in exchange for sex.

Sara is not alone in her regret of being born a girl. The truth is – at least for everywhere I have ever been - economic, social, and physical conditions seem to suck a bit more if you are woman. In case you are unsure, here is a journalist who chronicles the plight of women around the world.

In spite of all of this, women are amazing beings. We are diverse and beautiful and powerful. Girls like Sara have so much potential, so much to offer their communities and the world. Women should be proud.

Enter, my friend Wilson, a young Ugandan who had started a totally volunteer-based community organization call The Youth Outreach Mission (TYOM). He was so concerned with the plight of young girls in his community that he decided to act. With the help of volunteers from HELP International, Wilson and his team (which includes men and women) began visiting secondary schools and implementing a program called “Proud to be a Girl”. They have an empowerment-based curriculum that offers opportunities for girls to be introduced to powerful female role-models, learn about their rights, get information about sex, ask questions anonymously, share experiences, set goals, and express all the reasons they have to be proud.

A sense of worth is not only important through the lens of gender equity; it has real social environmental and economic impacts. For instance:

It is pretty clear that high fertility rates contribute to poverty and environmental degradation in sub-Saharan Africa. If a family perceives that a girl’s main value comes from transactional sex or from the amount her husband pays for her (bride price) or from her ability to push out babies, then it is likely she will bare children early and often. Yet if you increase a girl’s worth outside reproduction (through changing mindsets, increasing education, opening economic opportunity and so on) that increases the opportunity cost of having children, thus reducing the number of children she will want to have.

Now, you might think that if you just increased household income in general that that could increase gender equity and ultimately reduce birthrates. But I think you would be wrong. First, because if you increase the man’s income and not the woman’s, then you decrease the comparative value of her efforts outside reproduction. Secondly, (and more convincingly) this article explains how economic development in China and India has actually led to worse outcomes for women.

So, I think changing mindsets about the value of women matters.

Random example? This study of the spread of Brazilian cable television channels argues that the introduction of telenovelas (of all things!) reduced fertility rates amongst the rural poor. Why? Well, it altered how women view themselves and changed their aspirations (along with introducing them to melodrama and a whole other set of controversial gender roles, but that’s a different story).

Now, these telenovelas are ridiculous (and kind of smutty), but they also show urban, affluent women that have liberal values, less children, and are engaged in many self-actualizing activities (such as working). Rural Brazilian women began to absorb new points of view. As an effect of watching these telenovelas, women desired less kids. (In case you think this is an isolated case here is another study done in India on TV and gender norms)

I am not sure if Wilson’s school presentations are as enticing and entertaining as Brazilian telenovelas (actually I hope they are not), but I think the there is reason to believe that encouraging girls to be proud is more than just a feel-good project.

I grew up proud. Suzie and The Bear (aka Mom and Dad) were always going on about imagined strengths. “Ashley, you are such fast swimmer” false. “Ashley, you are a wonderful singer” false. “Ashley, you are so pretty in your blue-rimmed bifocals” cruel and false. But somehow I was naive enough to let a few of their lies sink in. Every girl deserves that.

Aimless Wanderer

Last Sunday, I put on a long blue and white bold-printed dress with a shawl to cover my shoulders. I was pleased with my "culturally appropriate" attire. Just perfect, I thought, for meeting with my friends and their women's group in a village outside Lugazi. When I got on the matatu (a public mini-bus that usually carries between 16 and 24 passengers) my dress snagged something on the door and I heard a long rip. I quickly sat down and a man outside the matatu made a large motion around his rear to indicate that my dress was torn. I tried to feel around the fabric to figure out how big the opening was, but I was squeezed so tightly between two other passengers that I couldn’t move my shoulders. At the next stop when I had to get out to let the man next to me leave, I pulled at the back of my dress and to my horror found I had huge hole in my dress, exposing way too much!

Mortified, I got back in the matatu and soon a robust Luganda conversation began, peppered with a word I know all too well mzungu. Yep, everyone was talking about the silly girl (me) and all her bare white skin. Soon the matatu filled with half-stifled laughter. I was too overcome with humiliation to join in. But really, who wouldn’t think that was funny?

The thing about it though, is that it made me feel really isolated. I had these flashbacks to junior high, a time when awkward adolescents, like I was, feel continually shut out of a social universe they are desperate to join. Hearing the hissing of mzungu, mzungu, mzungu all day reminds me of lunch tables I got kicked off of and birthday parties I was never invited to.

Being different, a foreigner, a wierdo, an outsider, a mzungu is confusing. On one hand you feel watched, isolated, judged. Even dehumanized? But, at least in this case, people are not trying to hurt me. Many are often genuinely interested and fascinated by my difference. Others have likely met other mzungus and experience tells them certain things about me. And in the end I really believe that bias is less about people and more the systems they find themselves in. This this case, a system that is rife with inequities and hypocrisy and corruption and racism and neocolonialism and other bad isms. A system in which money is controlled from places where many people look like me and decisions are made for “less developed” places where most people don’t.

Anyway, so I have struggled with this label “muzungu” or “mzungu”. If you do some not-so-academic googling you’ll find competing etymologies of this word. Some explaining it comes from roots to describe a “white person” or “foreigner” or “European”, but my favorite are the ones that say it is most directly translated as “aimless wanderer”.

I like this best. Somehow it is more pleasant to be labeled for a peculiar action than for a peculiar physical characteristic. I think my adolescent self would have agreed. And again, it reminds me of something that happened in junior high:

I was getting restless in history class and was being so disruptive that Mr. Robinson was as tired of me as I was of him. So, he wrote me a hall pass (time: 1:15 purpose: bathroom) and told me not to come back until class was almost over. But the librarian spoiled our plan and sent me back to class saying, “your pass, young lady, does not give you permission to just wander aimlessly!” When I explained the encounter to Mr. Robinson, he gave me an exasperated I'm-about-to-retire-why-are-you-people-torturing-me look, and wrote me a new pass. Purpose: wander aimlessly.

Twin Goats

Almost exactly one year ago I visited Uganda to set up an evaluation for HELP International. As you can tell from that blog post, I was again captivated by the life and beauty and humanity that are in abundance here. Re-reading that post made me laugh at how mystic I am about Uganda.

The truth is, prior to last year I wondered if I had simply romanticized the time I spent here in 2008. Maybe because it was my first job in development or because it was my first time to Africa or because it was my first time in an equatorial climate or, or , or. I wondered if I simply built up the beauty of this place in my mind. But my week in Uganda last year was enough for me to realize that there really is something about Uganda that makes me unusually happy. I told my friends here that I would be applying for jobs and knew I would be back soon. Now, a year later, here I am.

I was fortunate enough to get a fellowship with the Global Health Corps. GHC is trying to build a “global health movement” through connecting young professionals from around the world. Being a GHC fellow is awesome because I now have a crazy talented network of people with backgrounds as architects, IT specialists, fundraisers, doctors, communications officers, agronomists, researchers and so on. You can read more about GHC here.

Anyway, GHC paired me with my partner Edmund Okiboko, who is amazing. We are Project Managers for the Mpoma Community HIV/AIDS Initiative. Mpoma was started in 1999 by a group of HIV infected and affected individuals who wanted to build something better for their community.

At the newly-founded Mpoma Community HIV/AIDS Initiative’s first meetings, it was agreed that the highest concern for the members was their children’s education. Many of these children were not attending public primary school because they were too weak to access the distant schools. Those children who were able to get to those schools could not cope with the stigma and discrimination in the public schools because of their association with HIV/AIDS. With donated funds and land from the members themselves, the Initiative spearheaded the construction of a simple building to house a daycare centre for their children, which later evolved into the Johnson Nkosi Memorial Primary School. Slowly the initiative took on more projects in savings, livelihoods, health, and agriculture to support the families of students. Thus, what began as a small group of people meeting under a mango tree, has blossomed into a dynamic organization that provides quality primary education, counseling, health services, vocational training, and secondary school sponsorship to students and agricultural training, savings services, health outreach, and IGA start-up resources to the community.

Mpoma has inspiring board members and a dedicated staff, but lacks the management systems that are needed to take it to the next level. Edmund and I are tasked with trying to introduce some of these systems. These first couple of weeks we have been working on implementing planning systems including: creating a work plan, outlining budgets, assessing need, assessing profitability and cost/benefit analysis. There is soooo much work to do. Mpoma is crazy and inspiring and unpredictable and challenging.

I work with fun people. We always seem to get into lively debates about marriage or diet plans or music. They are people I would choose as friends, which makes me feel really lucky to get to work with them. I have felt so welcomed. In fact, the first day Edmund and I arrived, twin goats were born; one with blond spots the other with black spots. They named them after us.

Back to Uganda

Ever since I left Uganda (almost exactly 2 years ago) I have felt it tapping inside me (and no I am not talking about parasites). I am taking about an impatient thump, a wordless spell, reminding me that I took something from the Heart of Africa. See Uganda (and Lugazi in particular) is full of some sort of magic. And I think what happened was that I accidently absorbed some it, maybe through street food or the thick red dirt that stained my feet or those tiny hands that pressed against mine on my walks through the village. Anyway, some magic planted itself inside me and keeps tapping because it pines to reunite with its source.

As the wheels touched down in Entebbe and I looked out to the that florescent green scratched with powdery-red paths, the tapping was appeased and a week-long smile settled itself on my face.

The drive from Entebbe to Mukono was crazy. Things have changed so much here in just two years. The entire stretch is one extended city which has pushed out the jungle that used to surround each trading center. I had come to Uganda to work on an evaluation for HELP International. So, I am going to be staying with the HELP teams in Mukono and Lugazi while I am here. The first night I stayed in Mukono. When I reached the house there, David (our guard in 2008 who I have remained in contact with and who also is their guard now) was outside to greet me. We embraced and giggled with the excitement of being able to see each other again. David is one of the sweetest people I have ever met.

The next day I spent in Mukono. My purpose for being in Uganda is to set up an impact evaluation for HELP International. So I visited Uganda Christian University and talked to a professor there about the evaluation I am doing for HELP and whether we could get the University involved. I also interviewed several people that HELP has worked with in Mukono and worked on the wording of the evaluation.

On Friday I finally made it to Lugazi. The HELP house this year is just down the street from the one that we stayed at in 2008 so I got to walk the same path I was used to walking from town. On the way I stopped my Mama Joel’s house. Mama Joel is the mother of two children with disabilities, Rita and Joel. She was a member of the group of mothers of children with disabilities that we set up. Her children were usually left in the back of the house in the dark and seldom were taken outside and stimulated. We went and visited them and set up a community member, Grace (the pastor’s wife), to visit them as well. As time went by Mama Joel saw that getting the children up and playing with them was helping them to develop more. Joel was getting strong enough to stand if he had something to hold on to. Joel’ father started coming around more. He had been gone a lot lately (rumor has it he had taken another wife) and Mama Joel was afraid the father would leave them without any help. Mama Joel said the attention Rita and Joel were getting was encouraging the father to be more involved. We took Joel and Rita (along with about 10 other children with disabilities) to a clinic in Kampala that diagnosed them and suggested various aids (like wheelchairs, standing frames, sitting frames, and parallel bars). Joel’s father came along and examined the various equipment. He is a carpenter and said he could build many of these things himself. So, he built a sitting frame for Rita and a standing frame for Joel and made several other pieces for other children in the group. So, I went to see Mama Joel to see how the children were doing now two years later. I went to her shop where she charges and sells batteries and asked to see Rita and Joel. She looked down and said that Rita had passed away.

That afternoon there was an opening ceremony for two school blocks that the 2010 built at Ssanyu Primary School. I was so excited to attend this event because in 2008 we had also built school blocks there. Pastor Francis and Sister Ssanyu are wonderful people that started the school to serve the more vulnerable children in the community. When we first started working with them they only had a couple small and shabby classrooms that were already past capacity. By helping them build the first couple classes they were able to expand and take in more children. When the 2010 team arrived they had already built the foundation for two additional blocks and HELP contributed to helping them finish. Pastor Francis gave a speech and asked everyone to look around at the school and at the students, and he said that all of it had become possible because of the support that my 2008 team had given and the confidence that we had put in him and in the community. He said that the parents had been inspired by the help we had rendered and were excited to continue the work. He also explained that in working with Francis (this is a different Francis, a woman with a disability that is on town council) the building would be open to the group for people with disabilities that was taught to make and sell soap by the 2009 team. He asked me to stand and said that I had begun all of this. I was overwhelmed, and when asked to speak I didn’t know what to say. I told everyone how wonderful it was to be able to attend the opening ceremony for these school blocks on my first day back in Lugazi since on almost my last day in Lugazi two years ago we had had a ceremony for the first two blocks. I then got teary-eyed and said that Francis, Pastor Francis, and Sister Ssanyu were incredible people that I hope to be like one day. They are heroes to their community. The little help that we provided would have gone nowhere had it not been for their leadership and the commitment of the parents and community to make a better situation for their children.


On the way back from Ssanyu School I ran into one of the cousins of the family we had stayed with in 2008. She took me to that house and I was happy to find that the whole family was there. It was Ramadan and the sun was setting so they were preparing to end their fast. I didn’t want to stay long and delay their dinner, but they told me not to mind and brought me tea and snacks, even though they were not yet eating. They named each one of the 29 volunteers (plus Jackie of other CD) and had me report on how they were doing. It was wonderful to catch up with them and I was touched that they were so pleased to welcome me.

On Saturday I met Edith who was one of my first friends in Lugazi. Together with Steven (on Town Council and teacher at Lugazi Hillview Secondary School where we built a library in 2008) we went to visit a women’s group that had started a savings and loans program with the help of 2009 volunteers. They bring money to their meeting each week and save for 6 months. After 6 months they get the savings back and invest it into various projects. With help from Edith and Steven we interviewed many of the these women. This group happened to be near a woman named Christine who is the leader of a women’s group in Namengo that we worked with in 2008. She is one of the most incredible people I have even met. Her husband died of AIDS as did her sister. Now she has 6 children who she takes care of and pays school fees for. She also has AIDS and every time I see her she looks more fragile. In spite of all of this (or perhaps because of it) she is extraordinarily strong and hardworking. Since we worked with her in 2008 she has built 3 clay stoves and started a piggery project. She now has new baby pigs and is hoping to expand the piggery to fit them. The piggery helps pay for her children’s school fees and her medical expenses.

On Sunday I met Pastor Josiah and he drove me on his boda boda (motorcycle) through the sugar came fields, past a small stream where women line up to collect water, up several hills and into a village called Seya. In Seya Pastor Josiah and his wife Annet run a primary school and help with an orphanage called Hope Children’s Home. HELP built a stove, pig pen, and chicken coup at the Children’s Home and two school blocks at the primary school. They also have done teacher training at the primary school for three years. When I arrived they were cooking me lunch on the adobe stove we built in 2008. It was still working wonderfully! Also, their pigs had just had new babies and they had plans to expand the piggery.

I went to Pastor Josiah’s house and saw their new baby boy, Jeremiah, that was only a few months old. I also saw their little girl that had been born when I was there. We all went together to church. Their services are probably my favorite church services I have ever attended. Someone speaks for a few minutes, during which people are free to yell out “Amen” or “Praise God” or really anything they feel like saying. Then suddenly (maybe its only suddenly to me because I don’t know what was being said during the speech) the music starts playing and everyone begins singing. The singing gets louder and louder and as it crescendos people begin dancing and their movement get larger and larger until finally the air is full with energy and people are jumping as high as they can and yelling and others or on their knees and others are shaking. Finally someone puts their arms into the air and starts chanting to himself or herself and then everyone else eventually follows. Then someone else gets up to speak and we all start over again. There is probably lots of meaning and emotion behind everything that is happening but because I don’t know Luganda I am probably missing a lot. For me though its great because it combines so many of the things I love: dancing, talking to myself, singing, yelling, acting weird, Uganda, and old people.

That afternoon I went back to Lugazi for a game night with The Youth Outreach Mission (TYOM). A guy named Wilson Laker, who is originally from Gulu but now lives in Lugazi, started TYOM. When he was finishing secondary school his friend died of AIDS and it moved him to try and do something about the disease. Wilson, and a group of his friends, began visiting schools and teaching kids about HIV/AIDS. We ran into them in 2008 and a volunteer named Ashley Ward got them involved in our HIV/AIDS support group. They helped us build showers and stoves at the group members’ houses and continued to build these facilities at houses once we had left. Since then they have started a football club for street children, help put on HIV/AIDS advocacy days, and helped set up two eye camps. They have been helped by HELP volunteers who go back to the states and stay involved with TYOM by sending t-shirts, setting up a website, and even sending some money. Now, they have an office in town and just received a grant from the town council which will allow them to start a animal husbandry project which will hopefully help generate income so they can expand to new projects. It was wonderful to be with them and especially to talk with Wilson about all they were able to accomplish in two years. He was so appreciative to me and said that meeting Jackie and I was a turning point for TYOM that has made everything possible. I was uncomfortable with the praise since I was weary about TYOM in the beginning and think that had Wilson not been so persistent we might have dropped our project with them altogether. But, I am glad we continued to work with them and I have a feeling that I will continue to be involved with TYOM. I just know that it is going to continue to expand and I hope to be part of it.

That night I went back to Seya. They boiled water over the stove and gave it to me to bathe with. Then Annet showed me my room and they brought us dinner. We sat on the bed eating dinner and talking for hours. Finally Annet said goodnight and I lay in bed listening to the orphan girls in the next room whispering and giggling to each other. At one point they started singing "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" which I knew was for me.

David called me from New York that night and I tried to express how grateful and happy I was for everything that had been happening to me since I reached Uganda. My heart was so full and I was overwhelmed with emotion. I really wish he had been there with me and could have experienced it too, because my descriptions were lost over the phone.

On Monday I met with TYOM all day. I went to their office in Lugazi and we discussed the evaluation that I am working on for HELP. They were incredibly helpful in getting the interview questions right and figuring out the particulars of the methodology.

On Tuesday I went with David Olweny to his home in Tororo. David was our guard in 2008 and I have stayed in touch with him since. I have sent him money from time to time to help him pay the school fees of his brother’s children who were left orphaned. He was also the guard for HELP in 2009 and 2010. We had to wake up at five in the morning and loaded our boda boda’s up with all of David’s stuff because he was moving back home. This summer his house was robbed and the thieves took his goats. So, the HELP team bought him 2 goats and during the summer one of them had a baby. Which means my boda carried me, the driver, the backpack I brought to Uganda, my purse, one baby goat in a box, and one full-grown goat wrapped around the driver’s waist.

Our bodas took us to a spot where we caught a minibus and then it was only a 5-6 hour drive to Tororo where we got a private hire to make it out to David’s village. When we arrived David’s little boy George (everyone calls him Georgie) came running up saying “daddy, daddy”. He looks exactly like David and is absolutely darling. He had some infection that made his fingernail kinda rot and fall off. He showed it to us and made a sad face so that we would comment. David put all his things down and looked at the finger and cooed in Georgie’s ear to comfort him. I also met Irene (everyone calls her Irenie). She is only 7 months old and one of the most beautiful little girls I have ever seen. She had a cold so was acting very docile but still happy. I spent the rest of the afternoon hugging and kissing them and making them play games with me. David’s wife made a wonderful lunch and dinner for me. They know how much I like avocado so they had plenty of it for me to mix with my matoke, rice, beans, and greens (like spinach). They also bought bananas for me.

David took me to the old church that was built on a pile of stones. He also took me to his family’s house where he grew up. He showed me the graves of his parents and his to siblings that had died. He is the only one left of his close family. He also took me to his auntie’s house and introduced me to the two little girls that I had sent money for. They are still going to school and were very sweet, though extremely quiet. They both held my hands the entire time I was there but were afraid to look at me for too long.

We went to town and bought Rocky in Luganda subtitles. We brought it home and everyone piled into the small thatched-roof hut to watch it on my laptop. They brought a mat for me to lay on and I fell asleep. David woke me up and showed me to the only mattress in the hut. I protested but David insisted that I sleep there. In the morning I woke up to find David, his wife, Irene, and Georgie snuggled up to one another sleeping on a mat under the same mosquito net. The sight of how effortlessly they fit together and how freely they seemed to love each other made me cry. It is so wonderful to me that no matter where you go in the world love is common, it always looks the same.

I had to leave rather early the next morning and begin the trek back to Kampala. Once I finally made it to Kampala I met up with David Opiro and Wilson Laker. Both are good friends of mine and both are attending university in Kampala. I agreed to hang out with me all night because I had to be at the airport at 2am and didn’t want to pay for a hotel room or travel at night alone. So we wandered around Kampala. First we went to a super fancy hotel and said we were considering it as a venue for an upcoming event and got a tour of the conference rooms and dining rooms. We also loitered around the lobby and sat and listened to a piano player.

We saw a World Bank cocktail party going on and I begged the boys to crash it with me, but they insisted that that was a horrible idea. Instead we went to a restaurant/bar and had fish and chips. Then we danced the rest of the night. It was amazing to spend my last few hours in Uganda with two amazing friends dancing to local music. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

Weekends

So my two new favorite people are Melody (who is the new agriculture officer for USAID) and her husband Keith. They have really cool career experience, met and fell in love and got married in Kenya, and have worked in Afghanistan and Sudan. But even better they are just extremely cool and really fun to hang out with and really nice to me. On the weekend of July 23rd they took Karolyn (the new democracy and governance officer at USAID), Molly, and I to a lodge in Senga Bay on Lake Malawi. It was a SUPER relaxing weekend. I read and laid in the sun and tried not to get eaten by baboons and kayaked and ate yummy food and hiked.

On 31st that same group went to Dedza. On the way there I ate a mouse. All along the roadside in Malawi boys hold up sticks with rows of dead mice on them. They typically burn grassy fields and then catch mice as they run out of their holes in the ground. Then they take out the intestines then they smoke the mice. They don’t take off the head or the fur or anything, and people eat them just like that. I had mentioned it to everyone that I would have to eat a mouse before I left Malawi. Keith really latched onto this promise of mine and stopped alongside the road when he saw a groups of mice-sellers. I bought a mouse and took a bite. I saw the redness of the inside and immediately sit it our because I thought it wasn’t cooked. But as I examined the non-chewed portion of the mouse I realized it was in fact cooked. In fact it was very cooked and dry. So I took a real bite and swallowed. I wrote on facebook later that I had eaten a mouse which I suppose is slightly misleading because really I just ate a piece of a mouse. I hope my internet persona hasn’t lost all credibility.

Anyway, we went to this place where they make lots of nice pottery and had a great lunch. Then, we went on search for these 2,000 year old cave paintings. The guidebook took us down a dirt road, through a couple villages, and finally to the base of a mountain where there was an old Catholic church. We got out of the car not knowing where to go from that point. Then, several small children from the village came up to us and asked if, by chance, we would like to see the paints. Why yes, in fact, we would.

They took us on a hike up the mountain. And finally we got to the crest where there was a small cave and, behold, cave paints. The paints were of various animals. We sat there for awhile looking back and forth from the paintings to the gorgeous view. I started talking to a girl named Elizabeth, who spoke awesome English. She told me about all the tourists that come to see the paintings and how she enjoys talking to them so she can get better English because she wants to be a nurse.

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.