Addressing Guinea's Educational Shortfall: Operation Schoolbook Complete!

OPERATION SCHOOLBOOK COMPLETE!

Though there are a few government-commissioned billboards commemorating Guinea ’s 50 year anniversary of independence, people here do not seem to be in much of a celebratory mood. Though it is true that Guinea ’s independence from France united many tribes behind a strong feeling of nationalism back in 1958, the reality here today is not one of national glory, as this West African country ranks amongst the world’s lowest in terms of health, economic and educational indicators.

Another persistent worry preventing jubilant celebrations is the endemic political unrest here; in the five decades since independence, Guineans have endured coups d’etat, political purges, a repressive period known as ‘The Terror,’ guerilla wars, food shortages, mass violations of human rights, a ban on all private trade and a wide range of social unrest. There is pervasive fear that the widespread riots and street protests of 2008 will intensify in the coming months, leading perhaps to another coup.

Perhaps the greatest deficiency plaguing Guinea is the under-funded and woefully-inadequate educational system. Less than half of Guineans between the ages of 15 and 24 can read and secondary school enrollment here is only 39% for boys and 21% for girls (due to 75% rate of child marriage among the rural girls here). Guinea has never enjoyed a decent school system, which goes back to the days of French colonial rule. When the independence leader Sekou Toure rebuffed Charles de Gaulle’s offer to enter into a free federation with France in 1958, famously declaring, “We prefer poverty in freedom to riches in slavery,” the French departed, but not before looting the country of its resources, sabotaging its meager infrastructure, burning all of their files and canceling all investment and cooperation. As a result, upon independence, Guinea had almost no technical expertise and only 6 college graduates, which may be why their planned economy (without planners) was such a failure.

Besides the depressing educational indicators mentioned above, teachers are extremely underpaid, with some of the best being paid only $80 a month. Teachers I spoke with complained about extremely high class sizes– up to 150 students for an elementary school classroom, with kids squeezed in 4 to a desk. Many schools are not equipped with any textbooks; teachers are given chalk and a lesson plan and expected to “teach” the 100 kids in front of them. Without textbooks, rote memorization is emphasized, which stunts any critical-thinking skills and causes students to lose interest in their schooling.

The horrible state of the country’s educational system is directly linked to many of the social, economic and political problems here, as a population that has not received a basic education or developed any critical thinking skills cannot be expected to rationally address their problems or seek well thought-out solutions. After hearing about the challenges faced by a high-school math and science a teacher from a rural village called Wonkifong, I decided to apply the resources of 100 Friends to help address the shortage of textbooks and supplies. After getting a wish list from the principal, Operation Schoolbook was officially underway. I went to the textbook supply store in the capitol of Conakry and purchased 60 French textbooks (the country’s official language that most rural Guineans cannot speak due to educational shortcomings), as well as 200 textbooks for 9th and 10th grade physical science. In addition, we bought 200 notebooks, 200 pens, 200 rulers, 2 globes and 2 compasses for the teachers to use on the chalkboard. After schlepping the goods three hours to this little village, I spent the night on a mattress with lizards living inside (no joke, I could feel them squirming underneath me) and at the crack of dawn, I enlisted the help of a few students and a wheelbarrow to help me haul the supplies through the village to the school. The grand total for these supplies came to about $600 and upon delivery, I could see just how valued the donation was by teachers and students alike. The principal, a gentle man named Boubacar, handled each new book like a treasure and assured me that this contribution would make a lasting difference upon the quality of education at the school. As he told me himself, “Few things in this world have the lasting power of schoolbooks.” Words of wisdom indeed.

From the 9thand 10th grade students and teachers of Wonkifong that can actually learn science and French from a textbook, thanks to all of my donors. Your generous contributions are touching lives and it’s a profound pleasure to act as your dutiful conduit, even if I did pull a muscle in my back lifting the boxes of books!

African Field Report #2: Alleviating Infant Mortality in Guinea-Bissau

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-AbzvIxr88
(VIDEO UPDATE)
AFRICAN FIELD REPORT #2: Alleviating Infant Mortality in Guinea-Bissau
The Milkman Cometh!

You ever wonder what ever happened to the baby in the bed next to you at the
nursery?  Did he go on to become a doctor? Is she a race-car driver? 
It wasn’t until I landed here in Guinea-Bissau, a tiny impoverished
nation in West Africa that I pondered this question.  You see, Guinea-Bissau and
I share a common bond, but I didn’t discover this until I scoured the streets
of the capitol city Bissau for an affordable hotel room.  Since there are no
tourists whatsoever in this undeveloped country of one and a half million
people, the only hotels exist to cater to foreign development workers whose
organizations pay their expensive hotel bills.  After trudging through the dusty
streets for an hour with my backpack getting heavier by the minute, I was told
about a somewhat-affordable place on Avenida 12 de Setembro.  Ecstatic to
finally speak Portuguese in Africa, I asked the importance of this date, for I
assumed it had not been named in honor of my birthday.  I was told that September 12, 1974 is Guinea-Bissau’s
independence was recognized by Portugal.

But despite our common birthday, our destinies could not be more different.  I
was conceived out of the pure love of two wonderful parents.  Sure, I had a bit
of a tumultuous delivery; my mother still complains about my two-week late
arrival, but in the midst of placental bliss, I must not have gotten the memo
telling me my nine months were up. But upon my arrival, I received excellent
medical care, nourishing breast milk and a happy home.

Guinea-Bissau, on the other hand, was born out of centuries of conflict.  For
two hundred years, this region was home to the torturous slave trade between the
Portuguese empire and the African tribes that thrived from this shameful
practice.  This human commerce was so profitable that the region was coined
“The Slave Coast” and colonized by the Portuguese in the eighteenth century.
After hundreds of years under the yoke of colonialism, an independence movement
was born in 1956, but nearly twenty years of armed conflict would take place
before independence was granted. Shortly before its birth, its founding father
Amilcar Cabral was assassinated.  When Guinea-Bissau was officially born, the
Portuguese left the country en masse, and what remained was a struggling economy
beset with political instability and under-funded and inefficient health and
educational systems.

Since our shared birthday, while I have received nourishing food, wonderful
schooling and a healthy upbringing, Guinea-Bissau has been wracked by uprisings,
coups and a crippling civil war in 1998.  (As a sidenote: I visited a British
organization that is still clearing undetonated ammunition from the countryside
here that has remains from the civil war; farmers and children still lose
limbs and lives to these unexploded weapons). While many countries have enjoyed
economic expansion, Guinea-Bissau has been plagued by debt and a lack of social
services; today, roughly a quarter of kids here complete the sixth grade and
it’s per capita income hovers around $600 a year.  To make matters worse, this
country has become a transit point for South American cocaine shipments to
Europe, with many government officials involved in the trafficking, which
generates ten times the country’s national income.

Arriving in complete darkness in the absence of streetlights while crammed into
a station-wagon with nine other passengers, it was immediately obvious this
country is beset with problems.  Besides the fact there was a failed coup
attempt six days before my arrival when a military faction invaded the
presidential palace, there is virtually no running water in the entire country
and only electricity in the capitol city of Bissau.  Even here though, power is
spotty at best, as I learned while trying in vain to sleep in a sweaty bed.
While in the country’s second largest city, Bafata, I learned there is no
internet available in town - anywhere.  Imagine Los Angeles without a single
internet connection. 

But what is especially troubling about this country are the horrific health
conditions. The male life expectancy in the US is 75 years, but only 45 here in
Guinea-Bissau, so while I consider myself enjoying the prime of my life, that
baby in the crib next to me, if he were from Guinea-Bissau, would be only ten
years from his grave. 

That got me thinking about the babies here in Bissau that are born into such a
fragile existence.  In fact, Guinea-Bissau’s infant mortality rate ranks as
one of the highest in the world.  Over eleven percent of babies born here do not
survive their first year of life and twenty percent of babies do not live to
celebrate their 5th birthday.  Just think about that a second; imagine if every
child you gave birth to or knew had a 11% chance of dying before it’s first
birthday.  It’s a startling statistic.  As a result, many babies here are not
even named until six months after their birth, so as to avoid an emotional
attachment with a child with such a tenuous lease on life.  While funerals for
old members of the community are very somber events, the deaths of young babies
do not warrant big ceremonies.  The main causes of infant mortality are malaria,
acute respiratory infections, malnutrition and water-borne diseases.  

Another related health problem for babies and the entire population is AIDS.
While the nation’s HIV rate is much lower than many other African countries,
what is especially troubling is the “vertical transmission” rate from HIV+
mothers to their babies, a figure that stands at about 25%.  After researching
this problem, I learned that by treating the mother with a drug called Retrovir
during pregnancy and delivery and then administering the newborn with the same
drug for the first six months of its life can reduce to rate of transmission to
2.5%! 

In the process of searching out a local project that addresses this need, I
visited with officials from international health organizations, the European
Commission and the Maternity Ward at the government hospital (which was a very
troubling experience). Several people I spoke with in Bissau
raved about the same project: Clinica Ceu e Terra, which was founded in 2001 by
a Cuban doctor who has been working here for twenty years.  This clinic (which
translates to Sky and Earth Clinic) offers free services to more than 2,000 HIV+
women in order to prevent the vertical transmission of the virus to their
babies.  Without this clinic, there is no chance these women would be able to
afford the Retrovir or the powdered milk to feed their babies.  25% of these
children (500 babies) would be sentenced to a life with HIV, but thanks to the
wonderful work of Ceu e Terra, only 2.5% (50 of them) will inherit the virus.
That’s 450 prosperous lives spared.  Those are the kind of results I look for
before supporting a project!

Speaking with the director of the clinic, I offered to help on behalf of 100
Friends, at which point she let out a huge sigh of relief as she explained that
one of the clinic’s foreign donors had recently re-allocated its resources,
leaving her with a shortage of the fortified powdered milk the mothers feed
their babies.  I went directly to the supplier and purchased $600 worth of
product, tossed it in the trunk of a taxi and returned an hour later as the
Milkman Extraordinaire.  I also sought out two mothers that are in especially
dire straits and provided each with $60(over a months wages here) to spend on food for their babies, as
they are currently facing malnutrition.  

As I held baby Mamadou in my arms, it saddened me to reflect the uphill battle she faces.
I thought back to my own days as a newborn and more than ever, I realize just how blessed I have been.  I only hope that
with the help of clinics like this and through the generous donations of people
like you, Mamadou will live a happy, productive life in this challenging land of
limited opportunity.

Adam Carter's AFRICA AID #1: Sweetness Helps Low Blood Sugar

Welcome to Africa!

This is my first field report from my humanitarian trip to West Africa.
Here is a video intro:
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgrWX0UJqg

AFRICAN AID #1: Sweetness Helps Low Blood Sugar

On the eve of my recent birthday, #34, my thoughts centered on my child hood hero, Walter Payton, the record-breaking Running Back for the Chicago Bears. As a child, I idolized #34 for his amazing blend of agility, speed and power, but what really impressed me as I matured were his off-field attributes: grace, dignity and compassion. Though involved in local charities for years, he became a spokesperson for organ donors after contracting a rare liver disease in 1999. On that day when “Sweetness” was laid to rest, thousands flocked to Chicago's football stadium to watch, while countless others, watching from afar on TV felt touched by his spirit.

In honor of his legacy, as I tururned 34, I christened this “The Year of Sweetness.”

Soon after my arrival here in West Africa, wandering Senegal's bustling and overcrowded capital Dakar, I attended a UN-sponsored information session about diabetes, which is growing at an alarming rate in Africa. Though the disease was never seen on this continent a century ago, there are now over ten million people suffering from the disease today and estimated to be twice that by 2025! Though millions suffer from consequences of the disease, such as amputations and blindness, countless others die of diabetes before even being diagnosed with the disease. Around here, insulin is a health cost many cannot afford.

As I stood looking on, I watched a man frantically begging the officials for insulin. Much to his chagrin, the workers told him they were only dispensing information, not insulin. Dejected, he sat on a bench with his head in his hands. That is when the spirit of Sweetness swooped in; call it deus ex machina, NFL style. As a Type 1 diabetic, the most serious form of the disease, Komla's survival depends on injections of insulin to avoid life-threatening hypoglycemic reactions. As he pricked his finger to test his dangerous blood sugar level, I could see that we did not have much time to lose. Komla and I then embarked on a seven-hour journey through the city in search of his special insulin. Since it was Saturday, many of the hospital wings were closed, though one of Komla's nurses that has treated him in the past directed us to a pharmacy that might have it in stock. But at all of the five pharmacies we visited, spread out throughout this hectic city, we were told the same thing: due to the limited shelf-life of the insulin, they only ordered it when personally requested. We were able to order some but relied on temporary injections to keep Komla's blood sugar levels from reaching a critical stage.

Watching the insulin enter his weakened body reminded me of a withered plant that suddenly comes back to life after a nourishing rain. Suddenly, this worried man who minutes earlier had nearly been hit by a car due to his weakened eye sight and desperation looked up at me and smiled.

“Thank you my friend. You have no how much better I feel. Just when I think God is finished with me, he places help in my path to restore me.”

Komla's story is laden with difficulty. As a teenager, he started suffering from a melange of maladies, such as drowsiness, heavy breathing and bloody gums. Since his diagnosis seventeen years ago, his sight has worsened, twenty-two of his teeth have fallen out and he suffers from skin and foot problems. In 2005, he fled his native Togo after his political violence swept the country after his president's death. He traveled to Mali and then to Dakar in order to study tele-communication and is set to graduate from Chiekh Anita Diop University in three months. Sadly though, there is no government help for diabetics in Senegal (or Togo) and no health insurance companies will cover him based on his condition. This puts Komla in a perilous situation until he can graduate from university and look for work. He has relied on the help of a few individual foreign expatriates in Dakar to help him buy his insulin (and buy dentures for his teeth), but the American military officer that has helped him the most is back in the states for a few months. I am currently researching projects that provide insulin to needy patients in Africa, and have found a program sponsored by the International Diabetes Federation to see if Komla might qualify for assistance. But for the time being, in the name of 100 Friends and my generous donors, I was able to buy our suffering friend a supply of insulin to last him until his graduation and/or the return of his benefactor.

The next day, when Komla was back to his usual jovial self, we shed our benefactor/recipient role and spent the day as friends. As we sat on the nearby N'Gor Island eating fresh grilled fish, I told him about how my favorite childhood teacher had recently undergone an amazing recovery from diabetes after undergoing a kidney transplant. We also spoke about the new African hero Barack Obama and my childhood idol Walter Payton. Komla wisely reflected that these three men, each in their own way, provided him hope for the future.

“But Adam, I have one question for you? How did you know that I am also 34 years old?”

Laughing, I assured him I had no idea. Must be Sweetness' spirit looking down, I said.

HOW TO DONATE - TAX-DEDUCTIBLE

Please send check payable to:
100 Friends
2140 Shattuck Avenue #2050
Berkeley, CA 94704

with Adam Carter in the Memo
[Letters confirming your tax-free (501-c-3 status) contribution will be sent to your home by 100 Friends. I will also provide documentation from the field regarding contributions.]

Thanks for Making the African Fundraiser a huge success!

VIVA AFRICA!! Many thanks to all of you who came out to enjoy the Afro-Cuban Rumba Fundraiser at Las Tablas in Chicago! The fundraiser was a great success, with over $600 raised for my looming humanitarian trip to Africa. It was wonderful to bring so many great people (including some of my childhood friends such as this motley crew pictured above) together for such a worthy cause.

Helping Iraqi War Refugees, One Eye at a Time

Last week, on behalf of 100 Friends, I attended an awareness meeting for Direct Aid Iraq (DAI) at Northwestern Hospital here in Chicago. DAI is a humanitarian relief and peacebuilding project intended to build bridges of friendship and support with Iraqis displaced as the result of the ongoing Iraqi crises through providing funds for crucial medical expenses. 100 Friends donated $1,000 last year for their incredible work and we have pledged to lend more support for the upcoming year. The following poem was written by Haifa'a, one such beneficiary of much-needed medical treatment. Her powerful words - which describe the trauma and miracle she has experienced - blew me away.

Other Hands

Time to think.

Suddenly, in the midst of war, time to remember,

to sift and re-sift, to see clearly.
For forty years, I lived by the sun’s light,

drinking it through the mouth of my pupils.

Who could distinguish between that light and my eyes?

Didn’t my eyes also glow,

weren’t they themselves also stars?

For forty years, my eyes and hands

were lovers lost in a loop,

one chasing the other.

Eyes leading, hands following, they mapped the world,

memorizing its shape, texture, mass, color, knowing the actual thing:

bread, water, soil, stone and loving its illuminated body.

But there is light which is toxic,

which illuminates nothing.

All that intercourse ended when

the incendiary bullets

like molten beetles

bored into my face.

They ate my right eye.

They ate the bone beneath it and burned my other eye,

banning sunlight, breaking a forty year-old circuit of love.

Who first imagined phosphorous weapons,

their molten hunger?

Who dreamed of one light eating another,

of light eclipsing the love of light?

When the phosphorous munitions struck my face,

when they began to melt my skin and bone and eyeball,

my hands could do nothing.

My hands could not shield,

could not lead my eyes away from that light,

from the molten rock that melted my face.

They could not smother that fire;

they could not end the agony of being burned.

Place your fingers beneath your eye and find the bone that protects it.

Feel its unyielding edge.

Think of rock.

Think of a promontory weathering storms.

My hands, O! my hands could not halt the excavationthat left a crater in my face.

But other hands could.

Last month in Amman,

Iraqi doctors rebuilt the bone structure in my eye socket

in preparation for a prosthetic eye.

And yesterday, in a surgery arranged by Iraqis and paid for by Americans,

Jordanian doctors restored my sight,

reunited my hands and my one remaining eye.

What my hands alone could not do,

other hands accomplished:

human fingers and palms extinguished the flames of war

and reignited a dark star.

African Musical Legend Habib Koite and I

AFRICAN MUSICAL LEGEND HABIB KOITE RECENTLY INVITED ME TO COLLABORATE WITH HIM WHEN I VISIT HIS HOME COUNTRY OF MALI, IN WEST AFRICA. CHECK OUT OUR BACKSTAGE VIDEO:

Two Franks & Philippine Philanthropy

TWO FRANKS AND PHILIPPINE PHILANTHROPY

“You've gotta accent-u-ate the positive, eli-mi-nate the negative, Latch on to the affirmative, don't mess with Mister In-between.You gotta spread joy up to the maximum, bring gloom down to the minimum. Have faith or pandemonium's liable to walk upon the scene."

-Frank Sinatra
During my first trip to Asia in 1996, I ventured to the Philippines. Though I didn’t have the twenty years needed to visit each of the nation’s islands (one per day x 7,000 days), I did get to island-hop throughout the country and was blown away by the natural beauty and the warm hospitality of the Filipino people.

The entire month was like a catalogue of congeniality. While on a ferry to Mindoro, my global cohort Laz and I were graced with the presence of two lovely young college students that were heading home to the provinces to attend a cousin’s special one-year birthday party; the family rolled out the red carpet and welcomed us two Americanos like long-lost cousins. Those familiar with Filippino birthday parties can attest to the incredible array of foodstuffs on hand and being the foreign guest, I was literally stuffed like a pig on a spit. The highlight (that didn’t involve female affection) was undoubtedly the drunk, toothless 80 year-old uncle that kept the party going all night long by singing his animated renditions of Whitney Houston, Neil Diamond, the Beatles and Stevie Wonder. I will never forget the toothless jukebox belting out Frank Sinatra as long as I live.

The following week, we were welcomed by a friend’s cousin in Ilo-Ilo that treated us like royalty and took us to see a rock cover band that sent us into a laughing attack when he mispronounced the classic song, belting out “Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Kevin’s Door!” (Roll over, Bob Dylan.) Even when things soured, the fun-times vibe continued. When our friendly American hotel proprietor Jerome was shot by the mayor’s bodyguard one sunny Tuesday morning, the big-shot police detectives that arrived from Cebu City spent more time admiring the beach, buying me San Miguel beers and talking about the Chicago Bulls than they did investigating.

I’ll never forget the display of amicability the Filippino people showered upon me. Then last month, while Marc Gold (my role model and the founder of 100 Friends) was visiting Chicago for fundraising activities, we wired a few hundred dollars to a Filippina woman that was left for broke when Marc found her destitute in an alley a few years back and decided to help. Today, Aubrey Namit (pictured in the attached photo holding the newspaper) is finishing nursing school and will soon be providing income for her entire family. Hours after we wired the money though, we heard the horrible news about Monsoon Frank , the calamitous storm that claimed hundreds of lives in the central Philippines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdhjsrm4Of0
As we checked for updates on the internet, we received an e-mail from Aubrey who described in graphic detail the destruction and loss of life. Coming on the heels of the 2005 tsunami and the recent typhoon that destroyed much of Burma, there was little international coverage of the storm, but footage and personal accounts prove that Frank unleashed quite a torrent of destruction. Much like Katrina, the storm stranded hundreds of people on their rooftops, praying someone would rescue them before the rising water engulfed them.

As this all unfolded, I received a $300 check from a donor (thank you Barbara and Barry!) and suddenly it all made sense. Marc Gold in town, coincidentally wiring money to the Philippines, at the exact moment that this monsoon hit and just when I received this donation… It was obvious Marc and I had to help, so we talked with Aubrey and since she is well-connected with her community, she agreed to put the $600 (Marc matched my contribution) towards purchasing the emergency materials (food, medicine and water) that her community needed. In this instance, neither Marc nor I could be there to dispense the money, but we were sure that this future nurse that credits Marc with saving her life would be an effective agent to distribute these funds to those most in need. Happily, nobody in Aubrey’s family lost their lives and thankfully, our money was able to provide immediate relief to those that suffered from this horrible disaster.

I can imagine Sinatra and the toothless jukebox looking down from Crooner’s Heaven, their hearts warmed by the serendipitous trail of goodwill that traveled from San Francisco to Chicago and all the way down to Ilo-Ilo. Wait, I think I can hear their duet:
I’ve got a song that I singI can make the rain go

Any time I move my finger

Lucky me, cant you see – I’m in love!

HOW TO DONATE - TAX-DEDUCTIBLE!

Please send check payable to:

100 Friends

2140 Shattuck Avenue #2050

Berkeley, CA 94704

with Adam Carter in the Memo

[Letters confirming your tax-free (501-c-3 status) contribution will be sent to your home by 100 Friends. I will also provide documentation from the field regarding contributions.]

Amazon Aid

With the stark threat of global warming closing in on us, current talk regarding the Amazon focuses on environmental issues. While it is true that the degradation of the region is already taking a punishing toll on the Earth´s delicate natural balance, this universalistic approach overlooks the hundreds of communities that inhabit the Amazon and the day-to-day struggle for survival they currently face.

Despite the common perception, most inhabitants of the Amazon are not native tribesmen. Sure, there are still thousands of indigenous people living deep within the sprawling 150,000 square mile of rain forest, but only the most remote tribes are safe from the peril of government interference, Christian missionaries or commercial loggers. In their case, isolation is their only hope for maintaining their cultural traditions and guaranteeing their survival.

Most outsiders ares surprised to learn that over 60 percent of the Amazon´s population are urban dwellers. Walking through cosmopolitan cities such as Manaus with over its million inhabitants, the only hint of the rain forest´s proximity is the humid, rainy weather and the plethora of exotic fruits being sold on the street.

Some of the most marginalized communities of the Amazon are the rural caboclo communities that are made up of descendants of indigenous peoples. One region of particular fragility is in the western portion of the enormous Pará state of Brazil, on the banks of the Arapiuns and Tapajós Rivers. The communities here, which range in size from 5 to 70 families, rely on fishing, subsistence farming and gathering for subsistence, but they are currently struggling for survival due to the rapid depletion of their natural resources, due to commercial fishing, slash-and-burn agriculture, emigration from other parts of Brazil and the expansion of commercial farms (which are fueling Brazil´s resource boom in corn, sugar and beef).

With this focus in mind, I explored the region in search of efficiently-run locally-based projects that address the major needs these people face: health, income generation, sanitation and education. By immersing myself in these communities, living, eating and sleeping by their side, I was exposed to the major challenges they face and discovered (and financially assisted) several amazing projects which positively impact theses people´s fragile existence.

HEALTH
Due to their geographic isolation, most of these communities lack access to medical doctors and hospital care, which presents a slew of health-related challenges. For starters, child mortality is very high; over 5% of babies don´t live to see their first birthday and 15% of deaths in these communities are children under the age of one. Another startling reality is the rash of easily-preventable diseases such as dengue fever and diarrhea, which are often fatal here if not treated. Without doctors to visit, kids never learn how to brush their teeth, mothers receive no pre-natal care and families are unaware of the importance of washing their hands and keeping their food free from contamination. Fortunately, an incredibly-run project called Health & Happiness sponsors a floating hospital that makes monthly visits to about thirty of these communities, with the doctors, dentists and surgeons on board providing their services free-of-charge to the local residents. Miraculously, they have cut child mortality rates in half and have dractically improved the overall health of these communities in the last decade. In addition to medical services, Health & Happiness also performs a circus in each community, using this clown-filled approach to help spread their health tips. I was lucky enough to witness one such performance and while painting the kids´ faces – their eyes lit up with such brilliance – I could tell that some of these kids had never participated in such an exciting spectacle. While helping administer a tooth-brushing workshop (full of plaque-themed songs and games) for the children, it warmed my heart to see these kids learning such an integral skill and having so much fun doing so. The $570 I have donated will help finance this incredible project and will go towards the pruchase of much-needed medical supplies (and a few toothbrushes as well).

INCOME-GENERATION
Since the vast majority of land in this particular region of the Amazon is federally-protected, the caboclo communities are not allowed to farm for profit. Cultivation is limited to subsistence levels and carried out in a communal manner. As a result, the people rely on alternative forms of income generation. By providing a means of income to these communities, we can assure they will not resort to degrading the rainforest to ensure their own survival. I encountered some projects that promote the production and sale of traditional artesanato handicrafts, and others with an environmental focus, such as a federally-funded turtle farm that sells turtle meat and helps protect the species´ survival by guarding their breeding ground and releasing healthy turtles into the river.

While staying in a community called Cachoeira de Aruá, I encountered a recently-founded furniture construction project that provides employment for local residents, income for the community and preservation of the local environment. Local men are taught how to construct furniture (beds, wardrobes, tables, chairs, etc.) while also facilitating local conservation efforts. They take inventories of the area´s tree species and extract wood in an environmentally-sustainable manner. [A large plot of land is divided into twenty quadrants and wood is extracted from only one quadrant per year so that each plot is given two decades to regenerate itself before any logging takes place.] As of now, the workshop produces furniture for local communities, spreading the income amongst their families with 30% going towards a communal resource fund. Our goal is to supplement their income by expanding their reach to all of Brazil by working in tandem with an on-line market that has been established to help such projects (http://www.mercadoamazonia.org/). Speaking with the Director of the project – himself an expert woodcrafter and experienced development project manager – I learned the major impediment to expanding their market is the humidity here, as wet wood is nearly impossible to work with. In order to address this hindrance, I have donated $580 which will go towards the construction of a dry wood warehouse, designed to facilitate the rapid drying of the wood, which will produce a larger supply of workable wood. Oh, and another $20 for a radio, so these guys don´t have to work in mute silence all day long.

SANITATION
The first step in reducing water-borne illness is providing a safe water supply to the community. Fortunately, all of the communities I visited already possess local wells or rudimentary running water systems, but most still lack any type of sanitation system, which is why building latrines is so important. In order to learn more about this reality and provide a helping hand at the same time, I participated in a five-day development project that will eventually provide six communities with outhouses for each family. [So, if anyone has any toilet-related questions, now is the time to ask...] Constructing these specially-designed latrines is especially important, as these “dry toilets” eliminate standing water, which is a breeding ground for disease-spreading mosquitoes. What also interested me about this project is the process of involving six local communities: three representatives (including the Community Association President and a village elder) were present for the workshop, which was carried out in a small but centrally-located community. Engineers from the national health board were there to administer the instructions and everyone helped in mixing the cement, digging the holes, etc. I would not call the work more fun than working at the baseball stadiums, but certainly more important. The $580 I donated will go towards funding similar projects in the coming year, so that more communities will be saved from the spread of preventable communicable diseases. Basic sanitation, a reality we all take for granted, should not be a luxury item.

EDUCATION
Due to these communities´ isolation, federal services – if they exist at all – are lacking in scope. This is especially true in terms of education, as most schools here only go up to the fourth grade. Only 7.5% of the caboclo kids in this region have access to high school, which forces half of the kids to migrate to cities in search of educational opportunities or work. In additon to depriving the community of able-bodied workers and leaders, this exodus threatens the traditional culture that is passed on orally through the generations. Fortunately, a few communities have banded together to finance their own supplemental schools to provide a extra years of education for their children. I had the good fortune of visiting one such school which finances a separate classroom for fifth, sixth and seventh graders, extending these children´s education for three additional years. This multi-grade approach (a logistical necessity, due to the small number of students and limited resources) captivated me, as I too spent three years of elementary school is such a multi-level classroom. ­The school´s multi-disciplinary approach uses art, play and communication to creates a stimulating environment to pique the kids´ interest in learning, quite different from the dry, boring approach of the public schools. I was so impressed with the staff´s dedication and cultivation of an inter-community forum to work with other villages facing the same challenge that I donated $580 to provide much-needed materials such as school books and art supplies.

Though each of these projects are addressing recognized needs, there are plenty of other issues that demand attention. It was obvious through my visit for example that there is a lack of family planning. As long as family sizes continue to increase unababted, these communities will exhaust their natural resources which will force them to decimate the forest in order to guarantee their own survival. Given alternatives, there is no reason to think the Amazon rain forest cannot be saved, but without a means of income and basic health, the fragile eco-systems here will suffer as a result. Guaranteeing the environmental survival of the Amazon is the world´s responsibility, but it starts with the people who have lived here for centuries. Walking through the rainforest with some of the local kids in search of tropical fruit, I was impressed to watch them identify nearly every plant, explaining to me what each can be used for. I hope their mutually beneficial relationship with their environment continues for centuries to come and I thank all of my donors for allowing me to immerse myself in this region´s reality and improving the lives of their wonderful people in the process.

Escaping Escobar – A Herald of Hope

“You´re going to Manrique? Better be careful!” I hear that a lot here in Medellin, in reference to this rough and tumble neighborhood where I have been volunteering my time lately. To Colombians, there is still a stigma of violence associated with Manrique. After all, in the 80´s and 90´s, this barrio was once ground zero for the Medellin Cartel´s cocaine wars. Pablo Escobar, the most infamous of Colombia´s drug lords, used Manrique as a base of operations, flashing shiny guns and hefty pay-outs to lure young kids into his racket as assassins, drug-dealers and bodyguards. Though these ramshackle streets are a world away from my beloved Chicago, I can identify with the residents of Manrique. After all, on countless occasions in my travels, I have been greeted with the same gangster stereotype: “You´re from Chicago? Al Capone – bang bang!”

Actually, the parallels between these two hoodlums run deep. Al Capone recognized a demand for contraband and used his smuggling expertise to distribute his product and amass his fortune. Pablo Escobar´s contraband may have come from coca plants in South America, but the destination (like Capone´s whiskey) was the same: the streets of America, a place where intoxicants are always in high demand and millionaires are born everyday. By providing the logistics to distribute cocaine on a massive scale, Escobar´s operation raked in $30 billion a year and in 1989, he was ranked the seventh richest man in the world by Forbes Magazine. Interestingly, both gangsters were larger-than-life figures with extravagant lifestyles who tried to gain public approval by sponsoring social works programs. But behind the façade of Capone´s soup kitchens and Escobar´s churches and soccer stadiums, both were ruthless business men who relied on raw power and murder to intimidate their rivals and maintain their lucrative operations. By increasing the scale of their illicit business, each created formidable criminal organizations: Capone´s Chicago Outfit and Escobar´s Medellin Cartel. Both also had a hand in planning major attacks; Escobar helped finance the M-19 militia´s take-over of the Colombian Palace of Justice, wherein eleven of the Supreme Court Justices were killed, while Capone carried out the bloody St. Valentine´s Day Massacre against his enemies (which took place three blocks from my home in Chicago). In the end, both were both hunted down by US federal agents and both died painful deaths (Capone the victim of syphilis and Escobar the recipient of a hail of gun-fire).

Though Chicago has outgrown the Bootleggers (Capone died sixty years ago), Medellin has not quite exorcised Escobar´s ghost. In the 80´s, Escobar provoked a bloody wave of violence here in order to maintain his grip on the burgeoning drug trade – call it the Power of the Gun (Poder de la Arma ). Though the violence was felt throughout the city, the result was especially gruesome here in Manrique, a shanty-town perched upon a hill overlooking the city center. Residents tell me they wouldn´t set foot outside their homes after dark, afraid they would become another statistic, caught up in the crossfire of a conflict they never asked to be involved in. Even more disturbing is the fact that the cartel used intimidation, threats and delusions of grandeur to ensnare innocent kids into their dirty business.

Forty percent of Manrique´s five hundred families are internally displaced people (desplazados) that arrived in the city after fleeing the civil war ravaging the Colombian countryside. Little did they know they would be victimized by yet another plague of violence. Many of the families live in run-down shacks with inadequate access to safe drinking water and sewage systems. Although rampant poverty, high unemployment and drug abuse still abound today, the drug wars have ended and peace has returned to the streets of Manrique. And in the last year, hope has emerged in this marginalized community, thanks to a local NGO called Poder Joven (Youth Power), which was founded by local university students in 2000 in another down-and-out area called Barrio Triste (Sad Neighborhood). After a few years of volunteering with the children on a regular basis as college students, the graduates decided to take their efforts to the next level by building a community center to provide sanctuary for the kids in order to teach them values, keep them in school and provide them with counseling, attention, hot meals and self-esteem. After spending time with the director, teachers, psychologist and social worker, I am very impressed with the project´s mission and the professionalism of the entire staff. The organization is very-efficiently run with an eye on the bottom line and stringent book-keeping. Most importantly, the project has recently increased its own sustainability by establishing a recycling business that already pays for all of their administration costs. After six years of success with their initial project, Poder Joven opened their second home last year, here in Manrique. Every day (half in the morning and half in the afternoon, as the kids only go to school for half a day in Colombian public schools), seventy kids enthusiastically arrive at the center, armed with schoolbooks and bright smiles. When I walked in for the first time and heard the joyous sound of children diligently tackling their homework, it was clear the results are already being felt. Seeing these effervescent children learning and playing, I couldn´t imagine being here one year ago, when these kids had nothing to occupy their time besides the temptations of the street. Now that I see the results, the alternative is too sad to consider.

Though Escobar is no longer around to recruit these kids, there are still many negative influences to battle, such as living in the streets, sniffing glue, prostitution and crime. The cocaine wars may have ceased, but there is still a battle being fought on the frontlines of Manrique, one child at a time. In order to combat these vices, the staff rely on their own weapons: affection, security, attention, nutritious food, fun and most importantly, self-esteem and hope for a better future. Before Poder Joven arrived, many parents here sent their children into the city center every day to sell sweets or beg for money. Since integrating these children into the educational system is the number one priority, school attendance is a prerequisite for every kid in the project. It is heartbreaking to hear eleven year-old Sandra tell me she is only in the second grade, but hey, better late than never. In addition to the activities, counseling and teaching, Poder Joven also provides each child with two meals a day, which lessons the economic burden on their parents, so they won´t rely on their kids´ meager incomes. Over eighty percent of the kids diagnosed with malnutrition before the project opened last year are already making marked imrpovements in health. Unfortunately, the $25 it costs to send their kid to school per year is often too much for these families to handle, which is an unfortunate reality in a community where the average household income is $63.

In order to address the dire situation these kids of Manrique face, I have donated $400 of the funds I have raised to Poder Joven, so that we can send 16 more kids to school for the upcoming school year. That´s 16 kids that won´t be sniffing glue out of plastic bags, begging for coins or sleeping on the street. That´s 16 kids that will have the nutritional intake they need in order to learn, grow and enjoy their childhood. That´s 16 kids that will go from the Power of the Gun to the Power of the Youth. Thanks to all of my financial backers that are helping us all win this battle on the streets of Medellin, Colombia. With time and more financial assistance, even more children will benefit from this project´s amazing work. It may be true that violence begets violence, but education, security and self-esteem can beget a whole lot more. Rise up children of Manrique – the future is yours!

Rocinha: Rio’s Raw Reality

The tight alleyway wound its way through a labyrinth of concrete. Everywhere I looked narrow stairways led into dark caverns. My path dipped and veered, rose and fell, winding left, then right, up then down. Electrical wire hung haphazardly from low-hanging poles and the never-ending network of plastic water pipes all seemed to be interconnected. There was no method to the madness – it was a hilly conurbation completely devoid of urban planning. I felt like I was walking through a dream world, but my heart raced with a vigor that only imminent danger can bring, keeping me conscious of the reality at hand: I was walking through hostile territory under the cover of darkness. But somehow, this ethereal world captivated me, as though I was hiking through that optical illusion where all the stairs that go up somehow lead to the stairs going down, leaving the viewer trapped in a vicious visual circle. The sinuous path twisted under houses whose only space to expand was over the alley, creating a concrete tunnel and obscuring the sun, or in this case, the moonlight. Purely surreal. I continued climbing through this boundless three-dimensional maze and finally emerged onto a main street. I surfaced from the shadows and found myself face-to-face with an assault rifle. Its owner wore a flak jacket, loaded with an extra clip, but no uniform. He may be a soldier, but his army wears no badges. To quote Treasure of Sierra Madre, a famous film from the 40s, "Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!"
For those worried about my location, no, I am not describing Fallujah, though my environs are reminiscent of many Middle Eastern medinahs I have wandered aimlessly. The gun-wielding kid before me is not an insurgent, a freedom-fighter or a revolutionary. He is a drug-dealer. I met him, and many like him, in Rocinha, a favela in Rio de Janeiro. With over 250,000 inhabitants, its Latin America’s largest shanty-town, though it is more of a city than a favela, as it has a thriving culture, running water and electricity. It also has a murder rate higher than many of the world’s war zones.
Most residents of Rio do everything in their power to steer clear of Rocinha and insist anyone that visits is risking their life. But I have friends that live here and since my immersive instincts have taught me to experience a place before I judge it, I decided to stay for a while. What I discovered is a surprisingly safe spot that offers an almost-addictive sense of adventure. No wonder thousands of Rocinha’s residents wouldn’t want to live anywhere else...
Last year when I was living in Rio, my first "visit" to Rocinha had been from the air when I hang-glided from a nearby mountain. As I soared with the sea hawks looking down upon the bustle of activity below, I took pride in the fact that I had overcome an irrational fear. Many desist from leaping off mountains for safety concerns, but my brave mother and I had made the jump. On this second visit, yes, there was a higher level of danger as Rocinha can be a perilous place. Last year, a war erupted with Vidigal, the neighboring favela; it was a bloody episode and many were killed. And yes, tensions are once again on the rise as the whiz of pistol and machine gun fire becomes more frequent. But for the most part, this is controlled violence, carried out by professional soldiers on virtual battlegrounds for purely business-related reasons. Everyday life in Rocinha is safe, which is unexpected considering the complete absence of police. As in most favelas, the police are distrusted and disliked; they only enter in SWAT teams when they want to apprehend (or more often, collect a bribe from) a high-ranking drug trafficker. It is the drug cartel that maintains order in the favela and though they rule with an iron fist, the petty crime rate here is lower than anywhere else in the city. Though the wrath of vigilante justice may be brutal and the "trials" short, people know that theft, rape and assault are punishable by beatings or death. It’s an irrevocable truth that keeps people in line.
Rocinha is a world of its own with a distinct culture. Many of the original inhabitants are nordestinos that arrived as early as the 60’s, fleeing the drought and poverty of the Northeast in order to search out work in Rio. Many, such as Marcelo, the proud grandfather that lives here with his huge family, have been here for three generations. Taking me to his rooftop to display his expansive view of the favela below, I sense his deep pride in Rocinha. Though most would never even visit, he refuses to leave. From his vista, he describes the geography of the favela, which is built on a huge hill overlooking some of Rio’s most wealthy neighborhoods. Down below, the bustle is greatest, as four-story apartment buildings have been built where the highway meets the favela. Looking up at night from the street below, where Rio melds into Rocinha, the favela glows with lights that resemble stars, as though its own universe, which isn’t too far from the truth…
My first day in Rocinha was a bit strange, as I felt like I was re-enacting the now-famous favela-based movie City Of God. Anyone will recall the opening scene with the knife being sharpened, while the doomed chicken ponders its impending fate. This was the exact scene as my friends and I had decided to create a feast of our own, our savage dinner preparations somehow mirroring our brutal surroundings. Later that evening, after the "sacrifice," we went to a party in a neighborhood called Laborario, which is perched on the hilltop where the favela spreads even higher above the city. Though blessed with breath-taking views of Rio (spread out like a satellite map below us), I felt like I was in a quaint mountain town, as we hiked through green mountainous trails complete with monkeys and mango trees. It was a steep half-hour hike from the bottom, but much more open and expansive than the cramped conditions down below. As we descended, my peaceful mood was shattered by gunfire. Since I was walking with residents, I watched their reaction for clues. No one displayed any concern, so I asked if those were fogueteiros, the child lookouts that fire off firecrackers to alert the drug kingpins of any incursion by the police or rival drug gangs.
"No, that was a Kaleshnikov," my friend calmly replied. "They’re firing down from the mountain between here and Vidigal. Not a big deal," I was assured. We continued down the narrow paths until we came to Estrada da Gavea, the main drag of Rocinha and immediately noticed that something was going down. A phalanx of men with submachine-guns and flak jackets paraded through the streets, as though they were guarding a president. Though the sight of these massive guns was a bit unsettling, I knew I was in no immediate danger. My presence meant nothing to these soldiers; I was just another face on the street. We continued down the street and came to a spot where more soldiers had congregated. They were communicating by walkie-talkie and had paused, as though awaiting orders. They resembled a unit of ground troops, but their surroundings were so commonplace (a hot-dog stand and a bar blasting music) that it was hard to imagine they were actually engaged in warfare. Right next to them, a man was selling wheels of farm cheese from the trunk of his car. Though most people that suddenly find themselves surrounded by such heavy artillery would run (or at least keep as quiet as possible), the cheese-seller didn’t even blink. He continued yelling his vending chant, "Quejo mineiro! Bom precio!" It was his cool demeanor and the lack of panic (or even worry) on the faces of those around me that made me realize that what looked like a dangerous situation was just a mundane moment of daily life.
When I left the favela the next day to take care of some business in Rio proper, I longed to return to Rocinha. Though some would call it recklessness, I felt myself drawn to something greater. Rocinha represents the rawness of real life. Its residents range from garbage-pickers to drug kingpins. In the days to come, I hung out with both. We sipped beer on the street, hung out with great-grandmothers and tiny babies and cruised from party to party, jumping on the back of motorcycles, dancing in sweaty clubs, eating greasy food and ogling at beautiful girls. Though I may write guidebooks, I find myself drawn to the places that don’t get mentioned. Call me the accidental tourist. My initial reaction may have been one of surrealism, as I wound through a maze of concrete and electrical wires, but getting to know the people and the mentality of the favela, I came to realize that Rocinha represents a reality few of us can fathom and incredibly, a reality I find hard to resist.

Water is the Gift of Life [Maasai Mara, Kenya]

Water is the gift of life. We hear that often - but ask anyone who has suffered months of drought and they will tell you, indeed, this truth is more powerful than we might ever imagine.

Every day we are bombarded with statistics about how many people in the world are experiencing certain hardships; twelve million are refugees, over a billion live below the poverty line and countless others are deprived of adequate health care. But without putting a face to the statistic, we often experience a sense of resignation in the face of such unsettling facts.

I used to feel that way about the water shortages plaguing so many people in the world. I had read about how nearly 450 million people in 29 countries currently face severe water shortages today and by 2025 (when the world’s population increases by another 3 billion), as much as two-thirds of the world population could be water-stressed. But here in America, homeowners water their lawns for hours at a time, fire hydrants spray plentiful water onto the street and people leave faucets running because they are too lazy to turn them off. Americans may know that somehow water is important, but many certainly don’t treat it as the most valuable natural resources in the world. I have witnessed the perils of water shortages on previous trips to Africa; once while hitch-hiking through the sun-baked country of Namibia, I was dropped off for the night at a river where I could purify some water and set up camp. I walked to the sign that promised Red Gorge River, but arrived to find a dry riverbed. Suddenly deprived of this precious water source and saddled with a dehydration headache, I empathized with those that face this daily struggle. While in graduate school, my interest in water issues continued, as I wrote a major research paper on the future prospect of water-related wars, an especially dangerous possibility in the Middle East and East Africa, but it wasn’t until I met Jonathan Shuraki Koshal, a Maasai warrior from Kenya, that this water emergency hit home and inspired me to make a difference.

Late last year, my mother heard a report on NPR about a Chicago woman who while on a safari in Kenya with her family, was taken to visit a local Maasai community. The horrid conditions of the public school, coupled with the existence of a wonderful nearby charter school, inspired her to create her own foundation, Matanya’s Hope, which aims to improve the educational opportunities for these Maasai children. My mother befriended the founder and upon my return to Chicago this spring, we all worked together to organize fundraisers and traditional dance performances for Jonathan the five other Maasai tribesmen who were coming to Chicago to publicize their cause.

Though tall, dark and lanky like his Maasai brethren, what sets Jonathan apart is his disarming smile and playful nature. The time I spent with Jonathan over the course of a month was wonderful; we visited the aquarium (much to his child-like fascination), listened to music (he was enamored with my reggae collection), went out for ice cream and cooked big dinners here at home (Mexican was his cuisine of choice). At one point, while the cooking their native chapati bread in our kitchen, he and his friends confided that they only make these breads on special occasions because they cannot afford the flour. Bread, our most basic staple, is saved for “special occasions” due to the cost of flour? It is moments like that when the desperation of these peoples’ living conditions really hits home.

The Maasai are an indigenous pastoral tribe from the Great Rift Valley of Eastern Africa who are trying desperately to hold on to their rich cultural heritage while guaranteeing their own survival. Though communal in nature, they have been forced to embrace a market economy, which has made them dependent on market forces often out of their control. But the single existential threat facing the Maasai today is the scarcity of water. As a semi-nomadic peoples, the Maasai always moved based on the availability of water; in addition to their personal needs, water is crucially important to maintain their cattle, the Maasai’s only treasured possession. But the English colonial government and the current Kenyan and Tanzanian governments have tried to settle the Maasai by introducing “group ranches” and individual ownership, which has disrupted their traditional water-based migration pattern. As Jonathan tells me, this has had disastrous implications. The Maasai, he explains, have always believed water to be a community resource, with access guaranteed regardless of social status. They have a strong conservation ethic, as everyone is responsible in keeping water clean and herdsmen traditionally move from one wetland to another to allow the land to recover. But recent modernization in Kenya has made the wetlands a prime location for large-scale commercial agriculture projects, which is pushing the Maasai off of their traditional lands onto more arid landscape. Being confined to smaller areas of land with their livestock leads to over-grazing and land erosion which in turn results in desertification. The results, in many cases, have been deadly. When the small communal lake that the Koshal family has been confined to dried up last year, they were forced to travel over twelve miles to fetch water. Needless to say, trekking such a long distance through desert-like conditions makes everyday survival a tough task. Jonathan himself nearly died of thirst last year and at one point, was forced to drink cow urine to stay alive.

Finding myself face-to-face with a friend who nearly succumbed to death by dehydration, I felt ashamed for all of the times I had used the expression, “Man, I am dying of thirst!” Then and there, I pledged two things: first, never to use that expression and second, to assure that Jonathan won’t either.

With the help of my donors, I have contributed 20,000 Kenyan Shillings (US $300) to build a family-size rainwater storage tank for the Koshal family. This tank will guarantee a steady water supply for Jonathan and his extended family, ensuring their survival through the upcoming dry season, as water becomes more and more scarce. I am planning a trip to Africa in the fall and while there, I will look for local NGOs that are finding sustainable ways of increasing the water access for those in need, but until then I aim to support Jonathan’s family and other families in the Maasai Mara that are faced with life-threatening water shortages. Once again, a profound thank you goes out to all of my donors from Jonathan, his family and mine.