Every six weeks or so, I hammer out a message to a handful of my friends to update them on my doings. This is the latest installment.
Hello all,
I hope this letter finds you healthy and happy. The more that I think about the duck-billed platypus, the less I understand it.
This missive, correctly titled, would be the Tanzanian Dispatch of Doom. I suppose that I could be even more specific and title it the ZANZIBAR Dispatch of Doom, since it was written there. Yes, Zanzibar is a real place.
Our trip to Tanzania was preceded by two weeks in London with the entirety of the Faiths Act Fellowship. We did a lot of strategic planning and advocacy training, and also visited a number of local houses of worship in order to gain the “religious literacy” needed to build interfaith coalitions. It was wonderful to finally meet all thirty of my conspirators in our work against malaria deaths. Until London, I had known many of them on paper and through the occasional conference call, so once we all got into the same room, many of us were already fast friends. I have never met a more inspiring and experienced squad of young people.
My team spent the last three weeks in Tanzania, visiting dispensaries (clinics), hospitals, research facilities, churches, mosques, and other interesting spots. We have all completed a short “Primary Health Care” course at the Tanzanian Training Centre for International Health in Ifakara, an amazing school. They are training the doctors and medical officers desperately needed by the health system in this country, and indeed all across sub-Saharan Africa. We visited the first site of the new malaria vaccine trials in Bagamoyo just days after Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, made a stop there.
If there’s one key take-away from our time in Tanzania, it’s that there is an abundance of hope and faith here. Poverty and disease constitute only a portion of life here, not the entirety of it. Muslims and Christians already work together in mixed communities; we’re trying to inspire them to work together for a purpose. In this case, that purpose is the eradication of malaria deaths.
As it stands, I now know more about malaria than I’d care to admit, and my abiding taste for interfaith action and international development is even stronger than before. The Fellows that I am traveling with are outstanding, and I am honored and humbled to work alongside them. Like the teams in Mali and Malawi, we have gathered some amazing stories of faith, perseverance, and hope. We’re in Chicago now for two more weeks of long workshops and strategy sessions to prepare us for our work as Faiths Act Fellows.
Since my appointment to this program, I’ve spent many hours imagining the course that this Fellowship will take. From the beginning of our training, though, I’ve found that all my imaginings are only a sliver of what we plan to accomplish. We are building this program from the ground up, and the sky is the limit.
I’ll check in again once training is finished and I’ve completed my harrowing safari across the Rocky Mountains and settled in San Jose. In the meantime, be sure to eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.
As always,
Tim
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