AfricanKelli

My wanderlust is never really satisfied, just temporarily quieted. It’s been more than six months since I’ve traveled internationally and I don’t like the dust collecting on my passport.

I am hungry for adventure.

There is lots of work-related foreign travel scheduled for this summer, with developing world adventures surely sprinkled on top. But I’m talking real adventure. Take a fantastic vacation and see something amazing adventure.

I learned this week my former Peace Corps friend Todd will not be in Uganda when I wanted to visit him in July. He’ll already be back in the States. (Already. He’s been there nearly a year and I pick the month after his departure to plan a visit. Bad timing on my part, a big eye roll on his.) So, Uganda is out. I’ll hopefully (fingers crossed) be in Mozambique in July for a couple of weeks. I think a weeks vacation to some place in Africa sounds just about right. But where?

Here is where the adventure/weighing of risks comes in to play. I’ll more than likely be traveling alone, which is a bit scary for any woman, much less a young American woman in Africa. Hello flashbacks of fleeing the Peace Corps in 2000. Hello overly friendly African men who don’t care that they aren’t being sensitive to your culture by their grabby ways. I’m a little wary, but at the same time could use a huge helpin’ of adventure in my oh so suburban life. It makes me almost yearn to be in the back of a dusty cab in a sweaty t-shirt with mosquito bites on my arms and a backpack full of trinkets and goodies I can’t wait to bring home. Oh, the good days. Alas, the grass is always greener.

I’m thinking either Madagascar — not a terribly long flight from Mozambique. Or perhaps a trip to Kruger, although I’m not sure I could afford the fancy private photo safari I would so love to take. Eat new food, see some animals, hear some music, spend a few days on a beach. African beaches, for the most part, are empty. You can flop around in your bikini scott free without anyone bothering you. (You give up the ability to order a fruity umbrella drink from the lounge in your cabana for such isolation.) And I suppose there is the good chance I will meet someone fantastic within the next six months who will want to adventure with me. In that case, we’ll have to bring our own umbrellas for our Nalgene bottles, filled with iodine purified margaritas. Wouldn’t that be a sight?

Any suggestions? Have you visited some place in Africa that is so outstanding you can’t help but recommend it to others? Where is the craziest/most fun place you’ve ever visited? Then again, southern Africa isn’t that far from Australia. Perhaps I’ll just jaunt that direction for a week instead… History shows I love me some Australians.

I’d love to hear from you. I’ll even send some African fabric to a random commenter. So speak up!

And yes, Alexis, thanks for the reminder. Bravo to Africa’s first female head of state!!

~K

 

NPR is running a series of essays, called, “This I Believe,” from Americans of all walks of life.

Today, I submitted mine.

~

I believe in Africa — for its beauty and violence, for its simplicity and complexity. I believe in the power of Africa to heal, grow and flourish.

I visited Africa for the first time in 2000, moving to Cameroon for five months. The land, people, language, food were utterly intriguing and bursting with contradiction. The humid highlands were constantly wet, and as an Arizona native with dry roots and a prickly desert soul, I watched with fascination as mold grew on everything I owned; plants sprouted from fertile red soil feet at a time. The gentle fog enveloped me in the morning and the ragged rain pounded on my tin roof at night. The landscape was constantly changing and yet the way of life had been preserved from centuries-old tradition.

Today, I manage a health project in Sofala, Mozambique. I’ve been to this side of Africa — the Indian-influenced, former Portuguese Africa — twice. While Cameroon and Mozambique are thousands of miles apart, the people are remarkably similar. The beat of life comes in extremes. I’d never met people with fewer worldly possessions more satisfied with life. They work hard for every meal, but remember to sign praise and thanks for its nourishment before taking the first bite. One meal may be dried fish and ground cassava root that smells of worn tennis shoes. The next may be a savory curry, or delicious peanut rice soup with fresh mango that would rival any fancy cuisine.

I believe in Africa because for every atrocity — apartheid, genocide, disease — there is hope. Africans are optimistic. They are kind, generous, loving people who at times get swept up in political tragedies that let government officials purchase homes in Switzerland, or swap diamonds for machetes. And while AIDS ravages this continent, erasing generations and leaving the old, frail grandmothers in the villages to care for the lucky young ones who have escaped its wrath, the beat of life continues. Elders work themselves to exhaustion to keep their children out of the fields, by their side. More governments are working toward free education. Progress is coming, slowly.

On my latest trip I was working in a rural village, visiting a man dying of AIDS and TB. During the visit, a young boy carrying a dish walked into the hut, placing a warm meal next to the man. The boy disappeared as quickly as he’d come. As a colleague continued the visit, I chased after the boy, who told me his mother sent him to deliver a meal to the man twice a day. She sent him to many homes in the community. She didn’t want her neighbors dying hungry, alone. When I visited this woman, I realized she was also trying to feed half a dozen children of her own. She prepared these meals over an open flame, washing dishes in a bucket. Where she didn’t have modern convenience, she had compassion. She did what she thought was right, regardless of the circumstances working against her.

For this, I believe in Africa.

 

 

My passion is my work, which I am wise to rarely speak of on this site. Today is an exception.

 

December 1 marks World AIDS Day. I’d guess if you have the technological abilities to be reading this, you’ve already heard some announcement today about the World Health Organization’s predictions of 40 million or more infected. It is hard for me to imagine what 40 million looks like, but I am fortunate to know what AIDS looks like. Fortunate because it scared the hell out of me and gave me a new sense of purpose in regard to my career.

 

Many of you know that I traveled to Mozambique this summer. It was a wonderful trip for many reasons that I happily chronicled here. One of the most disturbing aspects of my work as a public health practitioner is seeing people in developing nations that are days away from death. This trip was no different.

 

Growing up in the sheltered existence of White suburbia, my previous experience with AIDS was limited and vague. Even the smartest scientists in the world couldn’t figure it out for many years. Did you know the first case of AIDS was found more than 50 years ago? A Belgian nun working in the Congo died of mysterious conditions. They preserved her blood to be tested later as medical technologies improved. This disease is not new to mankind, but has never had such fuel.

 

If there is a beauty to AIDS, it is the three-drug cocktail called antiretrovirals. These drugs are exceptionally expensive, although they have dropped in price during the last decade when countries took it upon themselves to make generic copies. India and Brazil have been doing this for years. I applaud them (fully recognizing pharmaceutical companies do have to make money to develop new drugs.) These drugs can give an HIV/AIDS-infected person 20 years more to live. For a child, this means reaching adulthood. For an adult, it means being around to raise their children.

 

The biggest tragedy of HIV/AIDS in Africa is the number of orphans who have been left in the epidemic’s wake. There are few adults with the knowledge to teach, govern, police, nurse and build. They are simply dying too fast and their children are left without a framework or functioning society. There is no question that this disease has turned back sub-Saharan Africa ’s economic and political progress by more than 100 years.

 

The reason I care is simple. I’m not sure how my spirit ended up in this caucasian middle-class body in the United States, but I’m sure it’s more similar to that of a 26-year-old Mozambican woman than not. It was karmic luck, divine intervention, whatever you want to call it, that gave me this life vs. that one. I refuse to take that for granted.

 

There are women and children living all over the world (including our own neighborhoods) who are being exposed to HIV/AIDS without being able to defend themselves. Whether this is in a country where women become the property of their husbands when they are married, or in a country where 60% of prisoners are one race, and their women wait patiently for them to regain their freedom and come home. HIV/AIDS doesn’t discriminate, other than it preys on the poor.

 

We can do something about it. It is a Herculean task, but it is possible to stop HIV/AIDS today. I encourage you to find a charity in your area that works with HIV/AIDS patients and provides prevention education in the community. I encourage to you fund programs that provide antiretrovirals to those who are infected and cannot pay for them. I encourage you to become involved and recognize that we as humans are more similar than not, and we must learn to help each other better.

 

 In the area of Africa where I have helped develop an HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention program, the population has more than a 26% rate of seroprevalence. In other words, more than one in four people are sick. Thankfully, Mozambique is one of the few countries in the world where testing and antiretrovirals are free. When our workers visit families we encourage them to do the following during an assessment:

 

1. Ask if they have been tested. Do they show they physical signs of HIV/AIDS? (exceptionally thin, skin lesions, hair loss, complaints of diarrhea and headaches.)

 

2. If they have been tested and haven’t started the cocktail, help them set up an appointment and find the route to the nearest clinic. If they have children under the age of 10, have them go with mom/dad to the clinic too. They must be tested.

 

3. If they are coughing blood, they need to be tested. (TB is common in HIV/AIDS patients worldwide)

 

There are more recommendations, but these are a good summary. For every mother we can keep alive, her children will be more likely to attend school, get a job and get away from the cycle of poverty.

 

Small small catch monkey – my favorite Cameroonian expression meaning, one at a time.

{Editor’s note — I just re-read this and realized when it was originally posted, all of the country names were deleted. Perhaps a strange new virus. Anyway, hope this now makes more sense!}

  

 

 

 

 

 

Two political blogs back to back —  it’s just that the view from the soap box is so comfortable.

 

I’ve been reading about the drought and the famine in
Niger for several months. Niger is a northwestern African nation, not too far from Cameroon. Long story short, their people are starving. We (the international community) have known this was going to happen for many months because drought causes food shortages which cause hunger. Right? This is not rocket science. We get it.

And yet, to read the US newspapers today, you see how self-consumed we are with miniscule problems, in the scheme of things.

For example, those rocket scientists. I wonder how much money we’ve spent on this latest space adventure? I wonder, if just for a second, anyone considered spending that cash on improving life here on Earth? I am in no way a crazy “anti science” person and I appreciate the amazing technologies that go into space walks and shuttle launches and the International Space Station just as much as the next. But I have to tell you, the expense doesn’t sit well with me.

Not when we have children dying of hunger in many areas of the world. We are frivolous with our spending as a nation and as a people. We put items above humans as priorities. I too am guilty of this. I love my designer jeans and leather handbags as much as the next person, but I also try give generously to charity, and to be conscious of the needs of others. I know that hunger fuels violence. Hungry people are willing to do things the well-fed are not.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to think of Africa as that “hungry, sick, poor” continent. It could be different. You could make it that way. We could do it together.

Consider putting tomorrow’s latte money to good use today.

Doctors Without Borders

 

Ernesto Paredes, nurse and supervisor of the Aguié CRENI training nutritional assistants. Photo © MSF

 

UNICEF

 

International Red Cross

 

Better yet, consider dropping your Congressperson a letter letting him/her know that global hunger eradication and food security are important to you. Addresses found here.

 

~Africankelli

Made it home and even managed to get a few hours sleep in my own bed last night. I did, however, learn the painful way that you should not interrupt your 8 hour Ambien prescription when in effect. I vaguely remember the phone ringing and talking and talking and talking as though I’d just climbed off the bar after a tequila drinking contest in Tiajuana. Good lord. I am a jabberwalkie sober, much less under the effects of drugs. The best part is that it is like a dream — I only remember a few words here and there and I’m pretty sure we were on the phone for a while.

It is nice to be home, watching Conan rerunds at 4 am and eating Cheerios out of the box. I’d be happier if I had managed to make it back with my camera. Somehow, some where, my 35mm Canon Rebel decided to free itself from my camera bag in my checked luggage and walk away. Rebel, where ever you are, I hope you go to a great family. I hope they develop the film — photos and photos of me with the orphans and feel a sock to the gut for their thieving ways. They I hope they take you around the world and show you a good time. They should know that you don’t like sand and your flash doesn’t work too well at distance at night. The best photos are with 400 film speed on the portrait setting and my camera would really like to see the pyramids some day.

We’ve been together since 1999. You helped me remember Israel, Palestine, college graduation, Cameroon, Mexico, the Philippines, Nicaragua (twice), Mozambique (once and a half), the great PGA debut in Hawaii, the Bahamas, Ireland, the UK, another graduation, the purchase of my first home and the weddings of many friends.

I will miss you friend. I hope you are in trusting hands that will treat you well.

~AK 

The first of two long flights is done. I’m at London’s Heathrow airport, waiting for five hours before I catch my flight home to the desert. Good Lord, I had forgotten how expensive this country is. A bottle of water, diet coke and newspaper cost about $15. I haven’t figured out how much this Internet connection is costing quite yet. £4. What is that in dollars?

The Mozambique trip was excellent, en sum. It gave me much time to think, read and write. I brought a print out of my book to edit and ended up having several Americans read it through. They’d spent a lot of time in country and had insightful additions and changes to make. It was great luck they were interested and available to read it.

From my travel journal, I have this half-written essay about poverty in Mozambique. In brief, here it goes:

 

In Sofala, poverty is like an onion. The first layer is decidedly pungent, but you haven’t tasted its strength until you’ve reached the center.

On the edge of town, where shoddy pavement meets sandy embankments, tall weeds hide dead dogs. On the edge of town, where these decaying roads meet large, concrete decaying homes, the first shade of poverty is evident. The inhabitants are sick or well, skinny or fat, educated and illiterate. They are religious and communist. They are hungry. They remember the war well — the days before when these houses were brightly painted and had gingham curtains in the windows. They can still see the foreign cars, the olive skin of Portuguese expats, the terror of civil war. They watched as colonialism came to a slamming halt. When they moved into these homes, the pipes dried, the toilets broke and the appliances were filled with plants, crops and whatever else they fancied. Today, the electricity is run off of pay-as-you-go systems with prepaid cards and codes residents have to punch into their power box. These elaborate foreign systems hang high on walls with paint peeling in the tropical humidity.

These families send their children to school and hold jobs as teachers, nurses and clerks.

Beyond the concrete homes, down the worn dirt path, past the mosquito-covered watering hole, rest the families in the mud brick homes. They have furniture made of local materials and cover their doorways with fabric, which flaps in the wind. Children play with tires, wheels and homemade cars on the front porch. It is bare earth that has been swept clean after much toil. A baby cries out from a nearby reed mat — one they’ve placed under a tall palm tree. There is no electricity here, but they do have a community well. They do not have a toilet, but a latrine is shared by several families. There is no soap in the small shack. This latrine is more than likely far too close to the community well.

Their machamba — or field — provides just enough corn, beans and rice for survival, but not comfort. Their children go to school as long as they can afford them to. They ride shappas — taxi buses — for a few cents each day into town to work to support such expenses.

They are bakers, guards and domestic help.

For those who cannot afford mud brick, stones and sticks suffice. These sticks are stacked carefully, with large stones placed in between to fill the gaps. Their roof is more than likely a plastic tarp, held down by other rocks. Their front door may be an old door removed from one of the many hotel rooms scavanged during the civil war. It is not uncommon to run into huts that can barely stand and yet have a hard wood door with a room number still visible.

These families work in machambas too. They are skinny, poor, uneducated and tired. Women of 35 look like they are 65. Their fields are a bit smaller and they know hunger well. Their children’s bellies are extended from malnutrition. The whites of their eyes have yellowed from frequent exposure to malaria. They more than likely have at least one family member who is dying in the home, resting on a similar reed mat, waiting for the final blow of AIDS.

There is no electricity, community well or latrines here. They do without, having never known otherwise.

They work on their farms and their children — who probably haven’t been to school — work next to them and beg from the occasional foreigner. They do not speak much Portuguese, but instead the local dialect — Masenna.

The family in the concrete home next to the road faces a many health disparities, but will more than likely live years past their neighbors just down the path. In Mozambique, like many developing countries, the majority of families live on less than $1 per day. Adding the same amount to their income greatly improves their quality of life, living condition, health and education.

In the tall palms of this tropical nation, the people live, work and die in varying shades of poverty.

 

~AfricanKelli

I can’t believe it is Tuesday already; it’s been a week since I’ve left. I feel like I could stay here for months and still have work to do. The health problems of this country are intense.

Yesterday I worked in an orphanage for a few hours, preparing the children for bedtime. I fed the premies bottles, the infants mush and the older children pasta. We then bathed them and tucked them in.

Highs: rubbing their backs and watching them smile as they faded off to sleep in their little cribs.

Lows: Having to put them back into dirty clothes after their baths because there weren’t enough clean ones. We put many of the children to bed half-dressed, knowing their beds would be soaked in urine by morning.

I will return to the orphanage today to distribute the knitted items. I don’t know, after all, if I will be able to photograph each with an item. I don’t think there is enough to go around and I don’t want to be the one to decide who gets what. I’ll let the judicious orphanage director do so. I’ve gotten some great photos and look forward to posting them this weekend when I’m home.

Staying with this group of American volunteers has been eye-opening. They are LDS and are here working on a housing project. They use phrases like “Holy Hannah!” and “Drats!” and make me feel like I’ve just gotten in country via the “sin wagon.” They are uber conservative and find it more than amusing when my occasional profanity slips through. It is humorous that in this house, I’m the scandalous one.

I’ve been out in the countryside working with our patients and kept hearing about the “book boat.” I finally convinced our program director to take me to the port so I could see what everyone was talking about. Sure enough, there was a giant ocean liner full of books for sale. It is some German NGO that sails from port to port to provide books to poor nations. The only catch – they were in English and most were Christian. Most Mozambicans aren’t terribly literate and surely cannot speak English. Senna, perhaps. Portuguese, occasionally. English, rarely. You have to wonder what these organizers were thinking. (But it was quite the sight, nonetheless.)

 

I’m planning on jumping back online when I have loads of time between flights in Joburg on Thursday.

 

Until then,

AfricanKelli

I got up and went for a long run this morning. It sounded like such a brilliant idea after a 12-hour sleeping pill-laced slumber. I brought running shorts, my Ipod and a baseball cap. I thought I’d run 30 minutes one way and then turn around and run the same route back.

Somehow, I got distracted, lost in thought. Before I knew it, I’d run 30 minutes, made several turns, followed a rail line, seen a baboon chained to a tree and become completely and totally lost. I haven’t scared myself like that in a long time. Thankfully, I found my way back and nearly kissed the guard to our house when I arrived. No more alone runs, though my legs feel great now that I’ve hit the pavement (dirt).

Yesterday was by far the best day of my public health career. I spent the day in the field with a visiting American doctor seeing patients. We worked with our public health activists to identify those who should be sent for HIV and TB testing. We saw more medical oddities than you can imagine, including leprosy. I held a four month old baby girl who had yet to be named. Her father refused to name or hold her because she hadn’t taken to the breast and wasn’t eating. They didn’t want to get attached. Someone had been feeding her rice and water, but it will be only days until she dies of malnutrition. We debated taking her to the malnutrition feeding center in town, but ultimately decided there were too many children in that village to take and we couldn’t pick. It was heartbreaking.

I feel like my work here has purpose and it is a good feeling. I was able to teach health activists yesterday and get my message across. We referred many people for testing and hopefully they will then be enrolled in the free antiretroviral program. They will live 20 years more becase we encouraged them to take these steps. With all the sorrow, it was still an optimistic day.

Things in Mozambique have improved dramatically since my last visit. There is less trash on the ground, freshly painted buildings, and a good aura — if I can be that liberal for a moment. I am having a good, while exhausting, trip.

I’ll post photos when I return. I took 145 yesterday.

I miss my family and friends. Hope things are going well at home.

Love,

AfricanKelli

Oy.* So Amanda and I missed the train bombings by one day. I got to Mozambique yesterday afternoon, attended a long afternoon of meetings and then we headed to Bique’s for dinner. It is a foreign-owned great little restaurant on the beach.
Imagine my surprise when we sit down in this palm tree frawn covered, round pitched roof restaurant and someone turns on BBC. In the first place, a television in Beira is rare, much one with cable and foreign cable, even stranger. And then, to see the place where I stood just 24 hours previously, burning. I couldn’t belive it.
When Tony Blair came on the television, the entire restaurant came to a halt. I was surrounded by foreigners — many of whom are European and here on work. We sat quietly and listened as Blair tried to choke back tears and express his frustration.  The total attention of those in the restaurant, the waves crashing on the neighboring beach, the mosquitos buzzing in the distance and the familiar sorrow of this news broadcast will long remain in my memory. The Mozambicans sitting with us kept asking, “Why do they keep bombing you?”
By “you” I assume they mean “whites.” Good question.

I’m staying with a house of young Americans. They are here working on a housing project and at the orphanages for a summer volunteer stint. It is kind of like “the Real World” without the cameras, or luxury. A bunch of random 20-something Americans living in a huge house together. So far, so good. They are very nice and were happy to see a new face. They’ve created a meal schedule and each person is assigned one dinner. I’ve got Sunday, I think. This reminds me that I need to get some money changed and get to the one grocery in town.
This trip is already so much better than my last. The sleeping pills were a very good idea, the weather is lovely (the high today will be 70) and there are plenty of Americans around when I get lonely. All is well.
Amanda, I’m glad you are safe.

Cheers,
AfricanKelli

*Do not judge my spelling. I’m paying by the minute.

So far, so good. I met Amanda yesterday in London. We had a wonderful time running around Picadilly Circus, seeing Big Ben and Westminster Castle (am I spelling any of this correctly?) and taking note of English fashion. She was kind enough to greet me with a UK Vogue, which was sweet. She’s doing great!

After mistaking one Johannesburg flight for another, I nearly missed mine and ended up running through the airport last minute to get to my gate. With the running and all the walking Amanda and I did, I was tired by the time the first drinks were served. A glass of tomato juice, a bottle of water, salad and ambien later, I was out for 9 hours. I vaguely remember the businessman in the next seat climbing over me to use the restroom several times. Eh. Not my problem, mate!

I feel invigorated to be back in Africa. The sunrise this morning was beautiful. I’m trying not to let it all overwhelm me yet, but the smells, the food, the “ja” and other jargon… it’s great. We’ll see how I feel in a week when I’m strolling through here on my way home.

In the meantime, I’ve got to get to work.

Cheers,

AfricanKelli