Yes ladies and gentlemen, this China who lived through the public health challenges in South Africa, who was exposed to the injustices of the world in Australia and southeast Asia, who studied his trade in America, who actually isn’t from China but is actually from a country next to China which in turn that country’s traditions and heritage can be traced back to China….. Maybe Africans aren’t so far off when they refer to me as China….But yes this China has come back to Africa with the Peace Corpse (not to be confused with corps, only Americans say corps) to do public health work in Malawi. And yeah I'm aware that this blog still has South Africa in its titled, lord's name in vain, I will change it in due time.
Having already done Peace Corps before in South Africa, I was mentally preparing myself for another Pre-service training (You know the training you do before your service, hence the prefix, pre)... A 2 month training in which we had to listen to a bunch of people drone on about mission statements, how community outreach is all about sustainability and empowerment, applying needs assessments and SWOT analyses, learn how to speak in clicks, why women cast spells on men to make them buy data bundles for their internet phones among other things, and have mental health sessions in which all participants had to begin each sentence with the words "I feel". Example: I feel that we should stop having "I feel" sessions. Our PST for PC Response was one week in which we learned survival Chichewa (most widely spoken language in Malawi), learned only things that were relevant to our job description and work environment, and learned practical skills to implement at site.
Many people call Malawi the warm heart of Africa and it truly does have a different feel about it. The racial tension that is so rife in South Africa is nonexistent here. And even my superiors in the Peace Corps office speak differently. Example:
"You have all done Peace Corps before and you are all adults. I'm not going to sit here and treat you like children. I don't care where you go, and I don't care what you do. This is a job. As long as you get it done and get results, what you do with your free time is your own business."
-Our boss in Peace Corps Malawi
"Mr. Tran. Let me remind you that you are not a private citizen here in South Africa, you are a representative of the United States Government and by joining Peace Corps you agreed to forfeit certain rights that a private citizen enjoys.” (I didn't even do anything wrong! I was just trying to introduce a project I thought was going to be cool, and it was.)
-My boss in Peace Corps South Africa
For the next 8 ½ months I will be located in a District called Balaka. Before getting to site in Balaka which I currently am located, I asked other Malawians to describe Balaka for me, and there really was only one word, only one adjective that could be used to describe it.
“Balaka. It is HOT.”
“You want to know what Balaka is like? It is hot.”
“Very hot, Balaka is.”
“Oh man today was terrible, it was so hot, probably because we drove around this place near Balaka.”
And when I walked into the office today after the 30 minute walk it takes to get from my house to the office, my co-worker took one look at me, turned on the fan, told me to get in front of it, and proceeded to say, “Yeah, Balaka is hot man.”
For the next 8 ½ months I will be working with the Balaka district assembly and other local government branches to help improve access to health services, increase cooperation and coordination between varying stakeholders and mitigate the impacts of HIV. Being able to go around with 3 members of the National AIDS Commission evaluating community based organizations around the area and in some of the most rural and remote parts of the district you gain a greater appreciation of the happenings and the challenges that I’ll face on a constant basis.
After 7 hours worth of evaluating CBOs we were driving back to the district office and one of the field team members said, “I’ve been doing this for 4 years and it’s days like today that get me thinking do some of the people that work at these CBOs even care? Is it even possible to capacitate some of the organizations we deal with? Even though I understand how important building the capacity of organizations at the community level it leaves me drained. But man when an organization does function, it can be really exciting. Helps remind me that we can build a better future.”
The next several months will be hard. We are few, resources are limited, the challenges are many, and the road seemingly has no end. I did 2 years of organizational capacity building in South Africa so I understood his sentiment but I said to him, "It is hard but as you said it's important and community based organizations are the backbone of everything that we do. If they fail, we fail. And by helping some of these organizations over the long term we are closer to the future we envision." He nodded and we drove over pot holed ridden dirt roads for the next hour talking about sports, politics, and America.
He didn't ask me about what the future I envisioned was and it may sound stupid and naive, hell it is stupid and naive. That future was a world that is free of AIDS, free of TB, free of malaria, a world in which every child has a chance to realize their potential, where the wrongs of the world are righted. I will be long gone well before I could ever see such a world but I will do whatever is necessary to build toward that future. Because when you play the game of public health you either win, or you along with everyone dies, there is hardly an in between (a little game of thrones? How lame). But there are others out there that are building toward the future they envision. Those are the people that play to win or in the end die trying. So I guess when it comes to the game of public health.... let's play.
:D
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