African Men. Hollywood Stereotypes.

Great ~3 min video featuring Kenyan men poking fun at the way African men are portrayed in Hollywood films. There are so many stereotypes that continue to be reinforced in popular movies. Yes, there are a few Hollywood movies featuring Africans that are based on a true story. However, we only see the negative truths and often through the eyes of a Western. As one of my favorite author once said:

"The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete."
~ Chimamanda Adichie (from TED talk The Danger of a Single Story)

This is for all the students I taught while at Tukuyu Secondary in Tanzania who will be our future doctors and lawyers :)

12 Reasons to Date a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer

Whenever I think back on the 26 months I spent living in Tanzania, I smile. Although that piece of my heart I left in Tukuyu aches. Luckily a bigger piece of my heart, my husband (a fellow Peace Corps volunteer I met and fell in love with while I was serving) is always nearby :)

Still looking for that special someone or just want to read a Peace Corps related piece? Then check out this post "12 Reasons to Date a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer"

My husband and I often whisper sweet nothings to each other in Swahili, appreciate hot water, live low maintenance and refer to our 2nd/3rd "mama"....Need someone to demonstrate safe sex condom techniques? We can help, we even know how to carve a phallus out of sugar cane :)

Condom race to help students overcome angst

A student demonstrating condom application on the sugar cane phallus

Davis, joy and hope

Just returned from my 9 day trip to Tanzania......the place I lived from Sept 2006-Nov 2008, the place where I met my husband, the place that will always have a piece of my heart, the place where nature's beauty moves me, the place where at one moment I can witness something so heartbreaking that I don't know what to do and the next moment witness something so inspiring that I then figure it out.

Above is a picture of Davis (the one on the back of the bike). When Davis was first taken into the Olive Branch for Children's care he was almost 2 years old but could not walk, crawl or speak. Davis was extremely malnourished and near death. My friend Deb, who runs the Olive Branch for Children, took him in and months later he was walking/talking. Later we realized he had a learning disability. In Tanzania there are not many options for people living with a disability....and few schools able to help. Visiting doctors from the West think he's autistic.

3 years later Davis is developing well. The whole time I was there I never saw him not smiling. He would follow me around bringing a smile to my face each time. He is no longer shy and can carry on simple conversation....he still has his moments (like toilet accidents and walking around with no underwear)....but he's making great progress and bringing joy to everyone he meets.

Madecasse - beyond fair trade chocolate

"70% of the world’s cocoa comes from Africa but less than 1% of chocolate is made there. Instead, farmers sell whole cocoa pods to the first of many middlemen who eventually export the cocoa beans to chocolate makers in Belgium or France. Tim McCollum and Brett Beach--introduced to Madagascar and each other while in the Peace Corps--founded Madécasse in 2008 to keep more economic benefit within the island nation. The company partners with 45 cocoa farmers in the Ezaka cooperative and a factory in Antananarivo to move from bean to bar in one month and then onto shelves in Whole Foods and boutiques internationally." (Fast Company's 50 most innovative companies article)

 

Hosting the entire process in Madagascar generates 4x more income than fair trade cocoa alone.

  

I am actually eating the 'Sea Salt & Nibs' bar as I type this....perfect blend of 63% cocoa and salt...mmm. Madecasse reminds of the event I went to this summer featuring Ali Hassan Mwinyi, former President of Tanzania. When asked what he thinks Tanzania and African countries need the most, Mr. Mwinyi said they needed to do more production in country. Less of just exporting raw materials to other countries for a tiny percentage of the overall profits. He mentioned bananas, mangoes and Tanzanite as possible ideas. I 100% agree. It is really disappointing that even though Tanzanite can only be found around Tanzania it is often processed in Asian countries. At least Madecasse is challenging the current cocoa production trends.

3 days until Steamtown Marathon, ~$900 raised

In this picture: Montessori teacher, Eliza and Children at the Gomoshelo Montessori Kindergarten

My first marathon is this Sunday. I've dedicated my run to all the lovely children and people I met during my 2.25 years living in Tanzania. So I'm raising money for  The Olive Branch for the Children. I have raised ~$900 so far and I am attempting a last minute dash to reach $1000.

The Olive Branch for Children was started by one of my best friends Deborah McCracken-Nangereke in 2005. Because of her amazing work she received the Rolex Awards for Enterprise’s Young Laureates Program and various PEPFAR grants (US President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief). She lives in Mbeya with her husband Putiyei Kimala Nangereke and her 9 adopted Tanzanian children (one of whom is Davis, my Godson :)

The Olive Branch for Children:

• Provides home-based care for more than 500 people living with HIV/AIDS.
• Runs kindergartens in 22 communities
• Manages Agricultural Projects for the community: providing the residents with small business grants, irrigation setup and basic supplies for farming including simple shovels and pails.
• Provides education scholarships for children to pursue University/College education via The Olive Branch’s Education Fund
• Operates a permanent medical clinic and hosts monthly medical clinics in remote villages
  

SPONSOR MY RUN:

If you chose to donate, please post a comment and I'll email you the details. 

PS. On October 26 I received a post-marathon donation enabling me to reach my $1,000 goal :)

18 days until Steamtown Marathon - $521 raised

~ I've reached my fundraising goal ($500) for The Olive Branch for the Children. $521 and counting....
~ This Sunday I'm running New York Road Runner's 18-mile race.
~ 18 days until Steamtown Marathon
~ The Olive Branch runs kindergartens in 22 communities in rural Mbeya, Tanzania. In this picture is a student learning how to count. I love the use of local resources ie soda caps.

Dekalb Market (a perk of living in Brooklyn)

I first heard about Dekalb Market from Wada-Africa, my favorite NY based African print dress supplier's website....then when I ran by it on this morning's 16-mile run I considered it fate. So my husband, dog and I decided to visit the market this afternoon.

They had two DJs spinning music that spoke to my heart....Fela Kuti, jazz, rap, R&B and reggae :) Lots of the vendors are stationed in salvaged shipping containers. The outdoor food court has free WiFi and is dog friendly. I ate two delicious vegan Caribbean patties from Nile Valley. The ackee patty was my favorite, but the callaloo patty was a close second.

And Wada-Africa, my favorite NY based African print dress supplier was there, so a purchased another dress.

How to Save the World?

No, seriously….how do you save the world? When I was a Peace Corps volunteer living in Tanzania people back home in America would say “She’s off saving the world”. When I decided not to join the corporate world and do non-profit work they’d remark “Good for you, saving the world.” However, every week I read The Economist, watch The Daily Show and read Foreign Policy’s daily morning brief…..it’s quite clear the world is not doing much better.

There are so many ills going on in the world. The US continues to disappoint me as the rich become richer and the poor poorer. The government denies 9/11 first responders covered cancer treatment. So many countries are experiencing wars/fighting. The current famine going on in Somali continues to stay on my mind. I read things like “29,000 Somali children under 5 dead in famine” and I want to do something to help.

How do people who want to help make sure they are actually helping? I almost wish I could go back to my pre-Road to Hell ignorance. The time where I thought just donating some money every month would help fix things.

I stay firm that education is the way out. If everyone gets quality education they can help themselves and their country. Corrupt governments will have a harder time bulldozing their citizens. Although I cried through most of the book Half the Sky, the common theme for happy endings involved education.

How do you help?

getting off 'the road to hell'

This week I read The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity by Michael Maren. From the first few pages where Maren paints a negative picture of Peace Corps volunteers (I'm a returned Peace Corps volunteer, Tanzania 06-08) I was torn between wanting to throw the book out the window and being really captivated. I'm glad I read it because it forced me to really think critically about foreign aid. Moving forward I will only donate to an organization if I have detailed knowledge of their projects/operation.

Most of the book features Somalia aid work by Save the Children and CARE. To give a really brief summary..... the book claims the aid work is making things worst, keeping evil governments in power and making slaves of those in refugee camps. Maren basically says aid workers/orgs care most about attracting funding. They don't care if their projects fail or if most of the "free food" goes to rebel army groups etc. Plus they often lie about where money is going.

After reading the book, I was left feeling cheated by all the ads I have viewed throughout my lifetime calling for my donation. I started to wonder if my past donations to UNHCR, CARE and the Red Cross etc. were wasted. So I enlisted Facebook for help. I posted "To anyone who has read 'The Road to Hell'. The book was written in 1997, are NGO/charities still this bad?" and the universe answered.

I forgot I have a lot of friends in international development. Watch this video about the importance of learning from failures and read some of their thoughts below.

• Not all aid orgs are evil, some believe in accountability, openness and innovating: Engineers Without Borders publishes failure reports annually
• EWB also created Admitting Failure inviting others to admit their failure so everyone can benefit and not repeat mistakes.
• One friend works for CARE now and says they are much different now. Plus the picture Maren painted of its employees is not accurate.
• When faced with the problem: give food to people who need it but some rebels will get some of it OR give no food whatsoever and chance people starving to death...what would you do?
• We do need more oversight/regulation of the whole field. Also more follow through and maintenance (Pumps and pipes fail within months of installation, but the installing NGO or GO never goes back to make sure things are still running smoothly.)
• A lot of people out there make their livings off of criticizing aid/development (Bill Easterly, Dambisa Moyo and Mahmood Mamdani) while seldom offering solutions for fixing what's wrong.
• NGOs are dependent on donors for funding, and donors often give money for specific purposes. Everyone wants to give money to help build schools and all of the other high-profile projects. But where's the money to increase protection for aid workers in conflict situations, for example? There are so many areas that are underfunded by donors because they aren't attention-grabbing, but they may be equally important as other stuff. NGOs often push for unrestricted donations, but ultimately that's the donor's choice.
• There's still too much focus on providing basic necessities (food/water/shelter/medicine) in refugee camps and not enough on psychosocial support and livelihood support. "We're so concerned with how people are dying, but not with how they are living".
• Aid absolves African govs of accountability to its citizens and cuts the african entrepreneur out of the decision making process. Why should the govt sit with its people to find ways of increasing revenue yet they can do that with the IMF? Africans don’t want handouts, we want opportunities to trade, just like everybody else. There's more poverty in India and China than continental Africa combined in terms of absolute numbers, and yet you don’t see images of their children requesting aid. Instead, their govs astutely figured out that wealth is a function of income-generating jobs, not donations. The entire framework of aid must change from POVERTY ERADICATION to WEALTH CREATION: there's a big difference. Instead of handing out mosquito nets, give small loans to African entrepreneurs who want to set up a mosquito net manufacturing store. Check out kiva.org, its brilliant.
• Overall, I think the development "industry" is headed in the right direction. There is also now actual science being done and submitted in refereed journals looking at and comparing different aid techniques. I think the next decade will be a good one for development.

Picture: This picture is from Engineers Without Borders. It summarizes how it might not be as "sexy" to sponsor spreadsheets/maintenance/a teacher's salary as it is to help build a new school or water well, but we need less "hardware" (building/installing) and more "software"(people with skills)

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

Juzi (the day before yesterday in Swahili) I watched Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Going into it I was expecting your average African movie that leaves me depressed with teary red eyes and angry at the injustices in the world. However, I got much more than that.....I got inspired. I was left feeling the amazing power of women and peaceful protest. Sure, I still had the teary red eyes and sadness/anger around the violence/murder/rape during the Liberian civil war....But instead of the empty void of "these problems are too big" I was motivated to immediately do some web browsing to see how I could help too.

Reading through partner org Women for Women led me to Run For Congo Women. I've heard about Run For Congo Women before but never really considered doing it myself. Not anymore, I've decided to raise money for a undecided cause while training for my first marathon this year. To redefine what I'm running for..... Now I just have to decide if I will be raising money for a war torn country, a Tanzania ngo or US one. Once I decide I will set it up using active.com's fund raising platform.

Synopsis:

"Pray the Devil Back to Hell chronicles the remarkable story of the courageous Liberian women who came together to end a bloody civil war and bring peace to their shattered country.

Thousands of women — ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, both Christian and Muslim — came together to pray for peace and then staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential Palace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions, they demanded a resolution to the country’s civil war. Their actions were a critical element in bringing about a agreement during the stalled peace talks.

Their demonstrations culminated in the exile of Charles Taylor and the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first female head of state, and marked the vanguard of a new wave of women taking control of their political destiny around the world."

A baby saves the day

My loving, gentle and sweet Grandma has been in a hospital or rehab center for the past 6 weeks. She has cancer of the liver. She will start chemo on Tuesday. I went to visit her at the new hospital she was moved to yesterday. It was quite depressing in the beginning. Her roommate is expected to die at any moment; Forcing the doctors to talk with the roommate's son about DNR orders. And then down the hall a woman is screaming constantly. I asked the nurses why and they just said she's sick and has a disorder where she can't talk......so all she does is scream to communicate her pain. As you can image this creates quite a somber and depressing mood.

Then this adorable smiling baby walks in with his father trailing behind. The baby had just learned to walk and is so proud of himself. I think my mom or me reminded him of someone he knows because he was instantly attached to us. He kept smiling and showing off his walking skills. Then he started to dance to the silent music in a baby's heart. And everyone is the room is happy, you can feel the shift in spirits. My grandma is smiling along. (To the right is a picture of my Godson who lives in Tanzania)

Before I left, we held hands and I said the short healing prayer. My mom and grandma aren't Baha'is but they are extremely religious/spiritual. Afterwords, my mom commented on how nice the healing prayer was.

I wish I got a picture of that moment. The baby was the cutest thing ever and I have him to thank for making my grandma happy. It reminds me of the 2.25 years I spent in Tanzania. The children there always gave me so much joy. Without fail whenever I was having a bad day I would play with the neighbor's kids and all with ok. To the left is a picture of the neighbor's niece that they were raising as their own. In the picture she's in my backyard with a sunflower I had planted. That girl made her way into my heart and has never left.

Lambsquarter and sunflower greens: Farmer's Market discoveries

I love farmer's markets almost as much as I love Whole foods (and for those of you who know me that's saying a lot). Something about all the fresh vegetables, fruits and beautiful flowers makes me happy. Plus I like meeting some of the farmers and workers who had a hand in producing my future nourishment.

I have been on the lookout for another super vegetable that tastes good enough so I could lessen my kale addiction. This Saturday I found it :)
Introducing Lamb's quarter (wild spinach).

"Lambsquarters is a close cousin to spinach, but far, far more nutritious. It ranks right up there with Dandelion, Watercress and Nettles as one of nature’s nutritional powerhouses. It has a mild, green flavor like our domestic greens. In fact it is a relative of Swiss chard, beets and a few exotic garden greens like orach, all in the Chenopodium family." 281% of your daily Vitamin A requirement, 111% Vitamin C, 1112% Vitamin K, 46% Calcium and 47% Manganese the list goes on.


The taste is similar to spinach, really close to "mchicha" a wild spinach I used to eat in Tanzania. I sauteed the lamb's quarter with some garlic and olive oil -> mmm. I highly recommend you try it. I will be revisiting Union Square's Farmer's Market to restock on some (plus their Kale is $0.50 cheaper ;)


Unfortunately, another purchase of mine caused some major buyer's remorse.... Dear, Sunflower greens: You taste mediocre and cost $6 for a 1/4 lb. I overlooked your high price because you are 25% protein. Just 3.5 ounces of your sprouted seeds contain 22.78 grams of protein. However, I had to force myself to eat a handful even after adding salad dressing.

Jokingly my fiance adds "When I eat them I can sense big sunflowers standing behind me and weeping because I am eating their children."

If you don't care about the price, it's still worth a try though. Because if you like the taste they still are an amazing source of plant based protein.