Student Leaders in International Medicine

SLIM meets Paul Farmer

2011-08-15T18:45:00.000-07:00

Woody Starr, a pony-tailed Chautauqua local and all around character walked up to the stage and interrupted Paul Farmer, “Dr. Farmer, you have some big fans there in the second row.” Woody pointed a finger in our direction and Dr. Farmer looked up, waved and said hello. Nick, Alexis and I attempted to contain our squees of joy and hero-worship—only somewhat successfully.

Paul Farmer, the doctor/medical anthropologist/founder of Partners in Health/global health rock star had flown from his home in Rwanda to give this speech during the Chautauqua summer lecture series. His lecture detailed the Partners in Health model, and described the hospitals being rebuilt in post-quake Haiti. And he (awesomely) answered Nick’s question on Malawi

Q: This is from a group of students from the University of Pittsburgh, Student Leaders in International Medicine. We’ve met with Dr. Joseph in Malawi. Can you comment on your involvement in Malawi and its success? Also, do you need another personal assistant?

A: That’s very nice of you. Thank you guys. As long as it can be indentured labor, but they’re against that at Chautauqua. Dr. Joseph, who’s from Upstate New York, was a student of mine. He’s been working for Partners in Health for 15 years in Peru, in Haiti, in Boston, and then he went to direct PIH’s program in rural Malawi. It’s very much like all of our efforts in rural and urban areas, too. We’re doing three things at once: rebuilding infrastructure (in this case, there was no hospital in this district, as you may know), training local people to do this work and also putting resources into the system. So, that’s what happening in Malawi. The impact of those interventions, which have been fairly modest, again in partnership with the Clinton Foundation and the Ministry of Health, have been just enormous in terms of maternal mortality. In other words, the health system strengthening approach has led to massive reduction in infant mortality, maternal mortality, juvenile mortality and great outcomes among the patients we’ve been taking care of. So, to me, Malawi is just another conformation that many parts of this model are perhaps distinct from place to place, but most of them are actually general and applicable from the urban United States to the mountains of Lesotho. That’s what I believe the Malawi experience teaches us, too. Thank you for asking.

After the lecture ended, Nick, Alexis and I caught our breath and went to wait in line for the book signing. A fidget-filled hour later, Dr. Farmer arrived and began signing books. As we approached the table, Dr. Farmer greeted us “Oh, and you’re my friends from Pittsburgh.” We did our best to play it cool, since we totally meet public health pioneers all the time.

Dr. Farmer signed our books as we described SLIM, Project Malawi and how much we admire and respect his work and Partners in Health. He was kind, engaged and inspiring all at once. He even stood for a picture with us, despite his bad knee. And as we parted he said, “I love meeting young people, college students. They aren’t cynical. They inspire me.”

May 23, 2011

2011-06-07T23:51:00.001-07:00

Ndimakonda Malawi (I like Malawi, I think?)

Boy oh boy oh boy. Standing there. Silly, tall uzungu, staring into thirty sets of white eyeballs, curiously looking us from head to toe. Maybe they are hoping we do something silly, or maybe they are just curious about the six white people who drove up with bubbles and plastic disks that they hav e never seen before. Frisbee is only entertaining for about 30 minutes in which at the end of those 30 minutes, we are left once again, standing there, hoping that little girl is crying because the other little boy kicked her or something, not because she is hungry. Ross and I couldn’t have felt more useful, kicking balls away from the children, spilling bubbles, attempting a little football...the usual.
Mchenga is directed by a tall jolly Malawian named Arnold who was more than hospitable with the overwelming portions of pumkin, sweet potatoe, and nsima that he offered. They have progressed immensely since last year, says Nicholas. And I say Pow kabam to that news. The floors in the CCBC are no longer dirt and the volunteers there seem incredibly dedicated to preparing the catchment area’s youth for primary school.
“Tomorrow you do business. Today you eat. Like you are home.” Thank you Arnold.
Ashley and Lauren are kicking butt on the research side of things, interviewing like crazy, something we were all anxious about getting started for them. Alexis shook her booty in the dance circle today, impressively I may add, considering this is the third day we have been pulled into the dance mix, pressured to gyrate and pop it like the Malawian women. Nick looked fitting dancing with that baby in the cheetah dress, grrrrrowl big papa.
Though it was enjoyable to watch the group of 40 or so volunteers share in our donated clothes and shoes, it also left me pondering the scene. I took a picture of the distribution of booty that reflects an image of desperation, of hands reaching and begging for the one or two shirts left in our suitcase. Yes these people are grateful, as acknowledged by the amount of zikomo kwambini’s you hear around the room. But I find it difficult to feel fulfilled...
The children are so cute and excited, it isn’t hard to lose track of time before you realize how tired and exhausted you have become. We hopped into the pick-up truck to make our way over to see the maize mill and the electricity, oh wait, excuse me, malawi electricity company has failed for the third month now to connect the power from the power line about 400 meters from the mill in order for the mill to actually function and serve a purpose. This electricity company does not know what is coming to them. Mzungu magic maybe? Alliteration maybe?
All in all, everything is fine. We are “sef,” thank you Morris. The bugs are a’ bitin, the journals are being written, and SLIM is getting it done. Oh! And I got to wash my underpants by hand wearing a chtenge, which was somewhat awesome.

Tuesday, May 21, 2011

2011-06-07T23:50:00.001-07:00

May 21, 2011
Today we departed from our usual scurry around rural Lilongwe to see a different side of life here in Malawi. Alf, our neighborhood Indian elder, was kind enough to invite us to join him and the rest of the members of the Lilongwe rotary for their weekly lunch meeting. Apparantly rotary clubs have universal mannerisms, as Emily found the behavior of the rotarians in Lilongwe quite similar to those of the rotary in Upper St. Clair back home. There was lots of food, bawdy behavior, appreciation of the company of good looking woman, and plenty of ego jabs to go around. Each one of us sat at a table surrounded by rotarians and made small-talk during lunch, while Nick was invited to sit at the head table and schmooze with the President. Aside from the jokes, the men of the Lilongwe rotary have very generous hearts, and share their wealth with the surrounding communities. Emily made a good point as we went back to the car after lunch: the problems faced by these two rotaries we have come to know are vastly different. While rotarians in Upper St. Clair clearly have their hand in a lot of philanthropy in the Pittsburgh area outside of helping SLIM in our goals for MPALUTI, the issues dealt with by the Lilongwe rotary (extreme poverty, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and limited access to clean water, to name a few) are serious and daunting challenges to confront. However, they are dealt with in the Malawian way: Give whatever you can to those around you, no questions asked, and smile while doing it. We were even able to form some contacts with rotary members who are auditors and another who works closely with our arch enemy, ESCOM, and is willing to help us out with our situation (it’s good to know people in high places).
After our bellies were full with good food and a good laugh, we rested for a bit before meeting Mirriam to help her with some errands around town. One thing we were able to do for her during our day was get her an internet adaptor for use on her phone. Apparantly this little gadget is a lot more reliable (and affordable) than the internet she was currently receiving, and we hope that it will allow her to manage Paradiso and the MPALUTI network more effectively, as well as keep in better contact with us back in the States.
That night we met up with one of our good friends, Frasier, and he showed us what the nightlife in Lilongwe has to offer. Besides showing off his hometown, Frasier showed off his dance moves, and we all learned a thing or two. I’ll admit, I have never danced as much in my life as I have in Malawi. It’s like its own form of communication here, and I’m just learning how to talk. I think I do ok for myself though, considering I’m a mzungu and I may be the tallest woman in the country (if you saw the size of the people here, you’d know I’m not exaggerating too much). I think I may even bring some of my African dance moves back to the States. Watch out Oakland!
Teonana Mowa,
Alexis

Cha Buino

2011-06-07T23:49:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 4th

Cha Buino

Cha Buino, or “it’s good,” is probably the short and simple way to describe SLIM’s Saturday at Nenchengwa Bay of Lake Malawi. The day began with a beautiful sunrise. There should be no surprise there; how many sunrises aren’t beautiful in some way? Well, to my understanding, as I slept right through it, this particular sunrise was breathtaking in beauty, only to be matched by the stars we gazed upon the evening prior. It rose slowly of the mountains across the bay, beginning our day of fun and relaxation.

Our next twelve hours consisted of fun in Lake Malawi. It began with some frisbee in the shallows between myself, Ashley, Emily, and Lauren. Nick was resting off the night before on his yellow submarine, and Alexis was paddling with all her might to meet him. Lauren and I also had a turn at the canoe, only to find that neither of us are particularly strong.

We ate lunch and took in some direct equatorial sunrays before heading back into the Lake to view it from a slightly different angle. Lauren, Emily, and I got a hold of some paddle boards. (Picture oversized surfboards that you propel forward with a 2 meter oar.) It was a bit exhausting at first, just another reminder of why maybe I should try lifting a weight or two sometime soon, but once we got the hang of it, it was actually very relaxing. We glided atop the clear water, watching fish swim just beneath the surface.

As the sun began to set, some of us searched a little zen in our lives and attempted yoga. It was more peaceful for some than others. Finding balance can be a difficult thing, but trying it is the first step.

We cleaned up for dinner, a huge meal of steak, chicken, or curry. We ate until we were content. As we settled in after dinner that satiated feeling took a bit of turn on us. I don’t know what did it, but oh did something do it.

Not too many Z’s were caught that night. The starry night lit the path as the azungus tip toed across the grass between the cabin and the latrine into the early morning. That morning was not cha buino.

Zanga

2011-06-07T23:47:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, May 30, 2011

Zanga

Wednesday was a day to be remembered for all ages…literally. It began with a visit to the Kangoma Youth Group, continued with a dinner with our more mature friends, Alf and Marianne, and finished with the celebration of our friend (in Chichewa “Zanga”)’s birthday.

For the past school year Nick had been leading efforts to raise money for the Kangoma Youth Group which is an outshoot of the Tilerane CBO. He spearheaded a series of Rock out for Africa concerts and, with the help of other SLIM members and awesome turn outs, managed to raise about $1000 to send over to the Kangoma Youth Group to save the program.Nick was seriously passionate about the endeavor, and we all believed in the cause to the extent that we could, never having been to the youth group. But today we were all fortunate enough to see why he felt so compelled to help keep this program going.

There’s a vibe there. I realize how lame this sounds but there’s really no other way to describe it. It is literally all youths running the programs; kids our ages and younger are initiating programs and following through. They take care of the younger children and maintain IGAs like a maize garden. And there’s peace there. A serenity one would least expect at a location run by teenagers. I’ve always associated teens with angst and complaints and general laziness but I guess in Malawi its just when the giving begins.

After hearing some incredible singing by the youth group members and watching a educational comedy about HIV/AIDS, we played a much less intense futbol passing game which we all adored because it excluded the running. I learned the hard way that if you don’t head-kick the ball correctly, it hurts. Also not so fun as a woman to hit the ball with your chest. Mental notes made.

Following this amazing afternoon at Kangoma we headed back to Budget and met up with our adorable, elderly, wise, crazy, carving/jewelry entrepreneur friend Alf and his wife Marianne for a Chinese food dinner. The couple have been married for 43 years and Marianne informed us that this is much in part to the fact that she just lets Alf do his thing. Alf made sure that our food was served in waves (“use your brain and bring the second round out five minutes after the first round”) and taught us that oranges are even more delicious when salted.

As if the day couldn’t get any lovelier, we finished up the night with a 30th birthday celebration for our market friend Osman, and our two other palls Morris and Allen. Lauren, Nick and I covertly snuck off to get a cake while Alexis, Ross, and Emily started off with the boys to a nearby club, Diplomat. Unfortunately, grocery markets close at 8 pm in Malawi. Nick, innovator that he is, suggested hat we go to Antonio’s, a nearby Italian restaurant. There we found half an apple pie, half a chocolate cake, and some sample gelato spoons. A perfect birthday cake. We utilized a half-used candle from our hotel and were off for the festivities. Osman was quite please with our :creative: offerings, and we danced the night away as all good nights in Malawi go. It was a perfect last night in Lilongwe before we headed off to Liwonde Thursday morn. It’s clear that awesomeness knows no age group in Malawi, and I hope I can learn to be as selfless as the Kangoma youths, as wise (and amusing) as Alf and Marianne, and look as good as Osman does at 30 ☺

Goodnight zangas,
Ashley

Uzungu May 31, 2011

2011-06-06T10:52:00.000-07:00

“Uzungu Uzungu!” Yep, that is us. Uzungu translates to white people in Chichewa, and truthfully there is nothing more adorable than seeing a five year old Malawian sprinting out their home to catch a glimpse of the uzungu driving by. With a thumbs up and sometimes a Jackie Chan inspired karate kick sent our way, the Malawian children get a thrill from seeing us. It is not a day in Malawi, if we haven’t heard uzungu.
So anyways, Sunday, last Sunday, Sunday the 31st of May. I apologize first and foremost for the extreme delay in blogging. Of course things lead to these sorts of delays, like being that we are in Lilongwe, and excited and wonderfully busy.
We all relaxed during the day on Sunday, taking in the sunshine and tieing up some loose ends in terms of paper work and academic supplement. Ross, Ash, and I worked thoroughly on revamping the MPALUTI Microfinance proposal so we could present it in it’s best form to the Rotary on Tuesday. We took it easy on account of the fact that we had a little concert to attend that evening. By little concert, I am referring to a reggae concert, in Malawi, with a bunch of real, genuine Rastas.
Oh yes, we got the opportunity to see the Black Missionaries in concert. The Black Missionaries might be the most popular reggae group in the country, perhaps in this region of Africa. In a field in the middle of a golf course, imagine about a thousand rastafarians doing their rastafarian thing, and the group of uzungu, doing it right there with them.
Bob Marley colors littered the field, either worn as a hat, or a jacket, or a chitenge, it didn’t matter. This was some serious reggae loving Malawians.
Now let me describe dancing to reggae. Okay, loosen up the arms and the legs. And the neck I suppose. Now bend over slightly, arms a little above your shoulders, kinda swinging forward while your legs alternately kick forward. To the beat of the music, or not. It hardly matters. The eyes are closed or looking up to the sky. There is probably a Carlsberg in one of your hands. And you are feeling this music. The dancing is somewhat silly to us, but everyone else is doing it. Sooo...
Our rasta friends weren’t even ashamed to dance with the silly uzungu. The concert lasted till it got dark (which isn’t very late, probably around 7) where we then returned to the comforts of Budget Lodge with pizza in tow. Oh, and a black out. Just another night in Lilongwe.

Emily

Thursday/Friday

2011-06-05T10:51:00.000-07:00

Liwondwe National Park (Drove all day thursday, park on Friday)

We quickly morphed from established foreigners to tourists once again as we carted heavy backpacks across Old Town to the bus depots. Navigating the broken and disrupted sidewalks during morning rush hour is somewhat treacherous; especially since you can’t describe the better half of our group as morning people. We turned into the bus station, pressing our bodies up against the brick wall to avoid being clipped by the mirrors of the dirty white minibuses that came flying by, closing their doors in motion and screaming their destinations. Seeing azungos, drivers jumped on the opportunity to con us into traveling with them, regardless of the destination. When we finally found a large bus appropriately labeled we discussed prices with the man in hasty English and boarded the bus at half past seven. Leaving required every seat to be filled. It wasn’t until a little after nine that we inched our way out of the station, just barely clearing the crowded lot before our driver accelerated, setting a pace that would be maintained, if no exceeded, for the remainder of the trip.
The city of Lilongwe and its surrounding Traditional Areas is the bottom of a bowl with jagged mountains forming its sides and city limits. The scenery leaving Lilongwe changed dramatically as we sped along, crossing through foothills and winding up through the various small mountains. The road narrowed, shifting from dusty asphalt to uneven red dirt that dropped off drastically within feet of either edge. I steadied my body, forcing myself to maintain my upright position while keeping my gaze out the window. The driver jerked the bus to the side as a van flew by, kicking up a small dust storm in its wake. My nose bumped against the cool Plexiglas, adding to the other decorative smudges that obstructed the clarity of my view. A young boy watched with interest from across the isle as I fidgeted in my bag to find hand sanitizer, which I promptly lathered on my hands and used to dab the tip of my nose. My smile caused him to bury his head in his fathers lap, overcome with embarrassment. As with most children and curiosity, he soon lifted his small forehead, revealing two wide, almond shaped eyes.
Below the road thatched huts lie in small clumps and the occasional fire released thick, grey smoke. Everything appeared relatively barren and uninhabited. The distant figure of a woman wrapped in a faded chitenje hanging laundry on a line was the only indicator I saw of life I saw for miles. As we climbed higher the land below us extended endlessly under a vibrant blue sky. Clouds cast lazy shadows over tree-speckled hills. Never in my life have I seen such vast, vacant land.
I can count on one hand the number of vehicles that passed us on our five-hour trip south towards Blantyre. We were very much alone and the driver took great liberties with both speed and road surface to shorten his trip. Approximately every half hour we would come to a stop while passing through more densely populated villages. Inspectors would board the buses in search of rogue children while vendors knocked at the windows, displaying their goods on their heads. Most were peddling edible items and by the end of the journey our bellies were stuffed with a nauseating mix of fried doughs (donuts, maize dough balls, somasoosas, chips) and Fanta. The old women who sat behind us appeared bent on making stew during the trip and they purchased a wide variety of vegetables at each stop. At one point the bus lurched forward and plastic bag busting with small potatoes released its contents over the floor. The one woman was elated when we stopped in front of a market along the Shire River where vendors approached with fish in hand alive and flipping. She fumbled with her bag and, much to our dismay, revealed just enough for the purchase of two large, live filets. Fortunately we were only a few minutes from our destination.
Stepping off the bus was relieving for only a few seconds before drivers offering to take us into town swarmed us. The uninformed traveler would have agreed, open landscape seemed to stretch for miles with no indication of where “town” would be. Nick pushed us forward, navigating his way through the crowd towards the dirt path that ran alongside the road. Behind a small cropping of trees appeared a wide unmarked road and a black metal gate marking our accomadations for the night.

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Emily and I woke in a balmy room and struggled to overcome the oversized mosquito net that served to insulate our beds, restricting the breeze and trapping our own body heat. Ross knocked again, with a little less compassion, and we grumbled, rolling out of bed. I switched on the bathroom light, allowing it to dimly light the entire room. Fifteen minutes later we were seated on cushioned planks, elevated in the bed of an old maroon pickup. The six of us huddled, shivering beneath a black sky with our knees digging into the backs of the seats in front of us. The stars had all but disappeared and the sun was just beginning to rise. Wind tore past us as we sped into the mountains, the sky beginning to grey. An orange haze deepened as it crept over fuzzy crests with teasers of sunlight and warm appearing between the peaks. We wound our way into the park past small, rural villages as a dense fog settled over the mountains. Women looked up from their work, their faces blank and eyes tired. Children squealed and waved their hands with vigor, throwing up tiny thumbs. The sun had all but risen when we pulled into a compound with an assortment of small buildings and elaborate reed roofs. We were seated on a circular patio on cushioned wicker furniture and given mugs of chombe tea and properly percolated coffee. We relaxed and explored, looking through the odd assortment of old books that lie on the coffee table.
A rusty olive green jeep of sorts pulled up and a lanky British man with some of the worst teeth I’ve ever witnessed pointed towards it and politely told us to enjoy our trip. The vehicle was European and from the early 70’s. The engine gurgled as it idled, allowing us to scuttle over the side and plop our already tender behinds onto the wooden plank seats. We did so in complete disregard for the man who had so kindly attached a metal latter to the side and stood with his hand extended as a gesture of assistance to all who were boarding. Despite the intensity of the early morning sun, the air was still unpleasantly chilled with an unforgiving breeze. We approached a gate and sprawling Jurassic Park style electric fence. We hopped off the truck and paid a uniformed officer a small fee to grant us entrance.
The road narrowed, each side sloping downward and blending into the rest of the forest. Our guide, a jolly, kind faced Malawian man, was in the process of placing a disclaimer on the entire trip when one of us let out an excited gasp. Despite our acquired immunity to many of the strange and often unbelievable things we have experienced in Africa, this weekend offered its fair share of stunning experiences. The large pack of grey elephants that lumbered across the path only a few meters in front of us was no exception. The dominant male pushed through the brush with his stubby tusks and made room for the rest to stop and graze. A baby eagerly followed the lead of what I can only assume was his mother. When the novelty of it all finally began to dwindle (although only minimally) we drove on and for the next two and a half hours we dangled our legs off the vehicle and watched as herds of impala grazed alongside warthogs. Baboons scattered themselves amongst them all, digging their way through heaped piles of elephant dug or sitting slumped, letting their tails hang limp behind them. There were a whole assortment of cute critters, but what seemed to strike us the most was the 4,000 year old Baobob tree that towered over the rest of the forest. Its trunk measured well over four meters around and it extended throughout, branching out to form and elaborate, leafless canopy.
Our morning began at five so by the time we returned to the lodge we had hours to waste before any buses were expected to leave for Nanchenga. I would say scheduled to leave, however, I don’t believe such a concept exists in Malawi, things occur whenever they please. Liwondwe is much more rural then Lilongwe and it was rare to see any vehicle venture off the main road. Bikes serve as the primary form of transportation, carrying up to three people through town. They line the roads, marketing their services and religious proverbs on comically decorated passenger seats. (Passenger seats are basically a padded board attached behind the bike seat itself and extending over the back tire.) For one hundred kwacha, Nick, Alexis, and I each hoped up behind young Malawian men and anxiously asked them to cart us to the market across the river. Anxious as always, I cringed as my “driver” pushed off and struggled to leave the dirt and cross onto pavement. Alexis and company made it off without a hitch while Nick’s bike swayed violently, the back tire flattening into the dirt. The ride itself, once it got rolling, was phenomenally smooth and relaxing. We coasted downhill, crossing through a predominantly residential village and crossing the Shire River by bridge. The stench of the market hit us while crossing. Fish dangled from wooden beams, spinning as people and wind passed. A literal leg of lamb, the whole darn thing, extended out over the path. On the bus ride to Liwondwe we had stopped alongside this particular market while the police lazily searched the bus. Vendors swarmed, haggling prices of half-dead catfish and bundles of sliver chombo. (Chombo, not chomba; that would be weed. I’m not sure why they made the spelling of their staple food item and most marketable good so similar…) A man approached balancing the lid of a cardboard box on his head containing a shinning auburn colored tea set and yelling 3,000 kwacha. Not to shabby folks, that’s less then twenty American dollars.
Nice exchange rates and hand made goods make me a very compulsive shopper. It’s fair to say I have a slightly more then slight obsession with Malawian woodwork. Over the past twenty-four hours I have been dropping obvious hints to show how badly I wished to revisit that market. The bike came to a halt along the side of the road and I awkwardly dismounted. Sitting beneath a shabby tree along side of a superette the vendor was casually polishing a wooden mortar. It turns out my beloved tea set happens to be solid mahogany. Lauren decorating heaven? Correct.

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Nanchenga Bay and Lodge (Friday night)

I had never been so content to be grimy and unsanitary in all my life. Without any reservations I stretched out along the sand swept wooden dock, letting my feet dangle off the edge. It swayed gently as someone walked out towards us in silence, creaking slightly as they slowed their pace, coming to a halt somewhere in the darkness behind me. The rocking remained. Rolling waves slapped against wooden beams, glistening as they receded in the light of one small bulb fastened to the underside of the dock. I tilted my head, glancing through gaps in the boards at the schools of fish bumping into each other, illuminated just enough that you could see straight to the bottom. All six of us laid in silence. I had never seen a sky so dark or so stunningly speckled. The only artificial lights for miles was the one beneath us and a warm glow coming from the bar on shore. The sky was blanketed in stars and light dustings that glittered. I didn’t believe that stardust was a real thing, simply a concept created for the magic of Disney movies. That sky was coated in it. A few of us cried.

- Lauren

Sat. May 28th, 2011

2011-06-01T08:00:00.001-07:00

Banja: “family”

Let me begin this entry by sending all the love from our group here in Malawi to our respective families back in the states. We miss you all, love you all, and thank you all for supporting us in our decision to head off to Africa for a month.

That being said, while we miss our families back in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York, we were warmly welcomed into a new Malawian “banja” when our friend, Nefeeza, took us to her family’s home for her brother’s birthday BBQ.

Let me tell you, this BBQ was every bit as awesome as any backyard BBQ in the United States. We had all the fixins. There was BBQ chicken, huge T-bone steaks, grilled chambo (head to tail was all there), nsima, rice, Malawian potato salad, greens, coleslaw, and baked beans. It was all there, and there was more than enough to go around. (So much for losing weight in Africa.) We even finished our meal with homemade tapioca pudding, cake, and sweet Indian tea.

The food was fantastic. No question. We ate until we were all “dukuta” (full). The deliciousness of the food was surpassed only by the quality of the company. In addition to our usual crowd of SLIMers, minus Nick unfortunately, we were joined by Nefeeza\s sister, brother-in-law, cousin, brother, children, nieces, and nephews. Her daughter, Amara, was more than entertaining throughout the evening. She is a social three year old with big brown eyes and curly black hair. Nefeeza’s son is seven and a great soccer player; he gave Lauren a real workout. There were a whole mess of others who left to go to a soccer game, and so little Bilan, Nefeeza’s shy two year old nephew, stuck behind to hang out with us. We stayed with her family all day. It really was great.

As night fell, we finally returned to our side of town, despite Amara’s request that we stay over for a slumber party. We got back just in time for the big Manchester United/ Barcelona soccer game. I actually passed out in my room and, subsequently, missed the entire game. However, I have heard a lot about it. Apparently, ManU is the local favorite team. Anyone who follows soccer knows that Barcelona won, and so, needless to say, there were many not too happy Malawians walking around that night. Even though the locals did not like what they saw, the rest of our troop enjoyed watching the game at our nearby watering hole, Club Inferno. It’s not as ominous as it sounds; it’s really just a small sports pub, and a friendly reminder of home.

Exhausted from the day and the excitement of the game, everyone returned to the lodge for a good night’s sleep.

Ross Morgan

"Africa is a flea market economy rather then a free market economy."

2011-05-31T00:21:00.000-07:00

We cautiously followed the man as he stepped away from the street. He moved elegantly through the small shantytown. Vendors woke from their mid-day slumbers and eagerly pressed towards us, goods in hand. I pushed my eyes to the ground and grasped for the back of Emily’s shirt. The path narrowed, each side slanting inward until each footfall stuck in a shallow ravine. The makeshift storefronts ended into a brick wall. The man disappeared into a dark path that ran between the bricks and a wall of wooden boards. Venders rushed out, baskets steadied on their heads. I gingerly placed each foot along the high sides of the path, pressing my body against the wall. It soon opened, revealing a single lane dirt street lined with even more elaborate booths. I stalled momentarily, amazed by the goods that extended from the shops and dangled over the street. I was quickly pulled aside, directed down an even smaller path that wound us deeper in the market. Women perched on overturned buckets, watching in amazement as three young Caucasian travelers passed through their secluded alleyways. We made a sharp turn, ducking beneath an aluminum overhang to enter a large three-sided structure built on a tiered cement slab. At either end tailors sat at worn, wooden Singer sewing machines, cradling brightly colored fabrics in their hands, finished skirts and shirts hanging overhead. Between them women sat behind rows of tables stacked with folded chitenjes. The vibrant fabrics were folded into small rectangles and placed neatly next to one another, forming rows of bold colors and ornate patterns. Attitudes and business approaches varied drastically amongst these women. Some made great efforts to hassle each customer, unraveling the fabrics and dangling them in front of overwhelmed onlookers. Others remained passive, watching as we ran our fingers over the rows. For some, a lifetime of peddling colored fabrics in a long, dimly lit room had taken its toll and they slept, draping themselves over their wares. Pushing through the crowds of people in the tight pathways that wound through the tables was challenging, and the pressing guilt of refusing these women a few dollars for their goods was heartbreaking. Our shopping was extremely visible and dark eyes followed us with persistence as we perused the tables, graciously shaking our heads and turning down the many offers that were forcibly thrust our way. Much like my decision-making in America, choosing a fitting pattern in a dingy underground market took me far too long. We left with only a few dollars out of pocket and elegant tapestry like fabrics draped over our wrists.
Enjoying our momentary freedom from responsibility and any set schedule, the three of us decided to continue exploring. I stepped off the covered platform into a small cement drainage ditch and walked back though the narrow passageway that lead back up to the open market and daylight. Ross hobbled along, adding amusing commentary as he struggled with his ankle on the uneven ground. Our progress slowed along the open road as we ascended a small hill, our eyes drinking in every image. For the novelty of it we wished to find an old Malawian flag. President Bingu Wa Mutharika had recently revamped the flag, slightly altering its image and making possession of an old flag illegal. Unfortunately fear has amazing power and the old flag was nowhere to be found. Our relatively aimless wandering found us in what appeared to be the hardware section. Metal rods, long wooden slabs, and axes extended out into the road, pushing us into a small clump in the middle. It was one of those moments where much more then our pale skin distinguished us as foreigners. We were skittish, both excited and excitable.
The hardware section continued on around the bend, nothing like what we intended to find. In my infinite wisdom I suggested a short cut to bring us back towards more interesting items. Sliding my back along a rough wooden wall and my hands on a storage crate in front of me I squeezed through a constricted opening between booths. Emily and Ross moaned as they attempted to follow me through a tiny ally that ran behind rows of poorly constructed shanties. Once again a trickle of mostly stagnant muck ran down the center of the “path” that I attempted to follow. I straddled it awkwardly, smiling brightly as I stumbled past men lazily seated on crates. Either they had been warned of the presence of a blonde or they heard our anxious laughter as we struggled through the labyrinth of people and shops because men soon began poking their heads behind their booths, greeting us in broken English. Although slightly flustered with the small deviation I had taken we were quite satisfied with our adventuring and when we reached the main road through the market we quickly left it again.
Piles of wood boards, chain links, tools. Turn around. Axes. Turn back. Fish. Stop. Don’t breath. Change direction. Fish. Shit. Change direction. Restaurant? Confusion. Food? is always acceptable. Continue. We followed a dirt trail through what appeared to be some rendition of a food court, lined with small shops marketing baked goods and fried sausages. Women sat to the side rolling nsima and dipping it messily into a green relish. A young man sat in front of a tray of small yellow cakes. A mix of exhaustion and curiosity brought me closer and for fifty kwacha I purchased a small square of sweet corn bread. The path ended where it began and we stopped to reassess. Ahead a set of wooden stairs led down to baskets of produce and the general direction in which we started.
Our haphazard journey surprised us all. It is not that we expected to be mugged or stolen away in one of the many dark corners; we simply had anticipated some level of irritation. We were clearly tourists, undoubtedly carrying a substantial sum of money, and lost in a very secluded, unenforced area. Instead of exploiting a potentially dangerous situation, every Malawian man and woman that we encountered either smiled politely and guided us on our way, or simply ignored our presence. Occasionally they prodded us for business, but never to an extent that we felt uncomfortable. It seemed that most were simply baffled by our audacity and good nature. We walked with confidence as we returned to the hotel, convinced that we had tackled a daunting challenge with relative grace. It was in this comfortable mindset that we responded to an offer of marriage on Emily’s behalf.

A Real Malawian Woman

As we emerged from one of small ally ways that lead from the market back to the main road running into Old Town a young Malawian man called out to us, addressing us as “sister.” Amused, we turned around to find a decently attractive man eyeing up Emily with little discretion. He spoke to Ross, “Your sister, your sister, I would like to marry her, I love her.” I opened my mouth, in part to laugh and partially offended that the offer was not directed towards me. Fortunately for Emily’s future love interests, Ross quickly deflected the situation, calmly suggesting to the man that he could have her hand in marriage for the price of twelve cows. Such great quantities of livestock would surely be an impressive dowry if one could afford it. Luckily Emily had not caught the eye of a particularly wealthy man and his unadorned response was “I will not have her.” Simple and true. We departed without another word on the matter.

^ That was our market adventure on Friday, followed up by watching the Man. U/Barcelona game in a packed bar in Lilongwe! It was a relaxing and exciting day!

Lauren

May 26, 2011

2011-05-29T03:07:00.000-07:00

Chikondi “love”

“Chikondi” was just one new word of many that we learned from our new friend, Alex Mkabe, today. Alex is an orphan from outside of Lilongwe who is assisted by our community organization of the day, Mwana Wamzako. They pay the school fees of Alex and 53 other orphans between the ages of 14 and 18. As we all know, these years can be full of confusion and angst, especially when, like Alex, the most impressive fourteen year old I’ve ever had the privilege to meet, they are being faced all alone. As a result, Mwana Wamzako also works to offer their kids not only some financial and health support, but also psychosocial support.

I do not think the importance of such support to these youths can be overstated. Alex, who shared his story with us, became an orphan at only five years old. After the death of his parents, he moved in with his uncle for a period of time. His uncle, however, did not place much value on education. So, at seven, Alex left his uncle’s home and began picking up odd jobs for places to stay, until he created a home of his own at only age eleven. This fourteen year old man takes his challenges in stride; meanwhile, a B on an exam crushes me until a weekend pick-me-up. He hopes to go to university to be a doctor or a politician in Malawi so that he can help others in his country. I hope he goes too.

After seeing all the good Mwana Wamzako and its affiliate, Lukuni Parish, do for these kids, the group gained a second wind in its fight against ESCOM, the evil electric company that has been screwing Mchenga and Mwana Wamzako out of their much needed and already-paid-for electricity. Unfortunately, much of our energy wained over the course of the hour we waited for one copy of a receipt to be made. The six of us and our translator of anger, Mirriam, ate peanuts and napped as we sat alone in the manager's office. Upon his return, I wiped the drool from my mouth and excitedly asked to see the receipt that would prove ESCOM inadequate and mismanaged. However, he instead brought us a copy of the wrong receipt, and they were closing, which can apparently be done at any arbitrary time of the day. Frustrated, I informed this manager that ESCOM's customer service is "the worst," to which he could only passively respond with, "yes, I know."

We left with a new passion to defeat ESCOM and their terrible inefficencies, but first we needed to regroup and find some peace. We found said peace in the boxed wine of a local Italian eatery, where we also refueled with pizza and sandwiches.

While our interactions with ESCOM have been less than pleasant, they stand a stark contrast to the rest of our Malawian experience. The chikondi in Malawi is palpable. The people here not only express a refreshing level of affection toward one another, but have also been completely welcoming of us as visitors.

Wokongola Malawi, Wednesday, May 25 2011

2011-05-29T02:18:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, May 25 2011

Wokongola: Beautiful. The word that describes the CBO we were lucky enough to visit today, Luzi, but can be pretty easily applied to Malawi in general.

Let me start off by saying that for the past week and a half I have been comparing every environment we are in to the scenery in the Lion King. Luzi takes the cake by scoring about a 8.5 (9 if you ask Ross) on the Lion King similarity scale. There was even some sort of mountain-like rock that could be considered Pride Rock.

The gorgeous landscape was happily followed by the best welcome anyone could ask for: song, dance, and smiling. I really think it’s a habit the U.S. should pick up; there is absolutely no better way to make a person feel welcome. We were ushered into a building with a huge amount of charts and diagrams and pictures on the wall. It was easy to see by the sheer magnitude of materials that Luzi was doing a heck of a lot. Such an impression was confirmed when one of the CBO volunteers was kind enough to point out one chart in particular to me. It explained that Luzi was responsible for over 1000 orphans and vulnerable children, over 100 elderly people, almost 300 youths, and over 2000 students. Most astounding was that there were over 1000 volunteers in this CBO. We were all amazed when other CBOs managed to include maybe 30 people willing to dedicate their time and energy to help others, let along 1000. All these volunteers have family and friends to take care of, all of them have their own problems and worries and concerns. Yet when you ask them “why are you a volunteer for this CBO” they all answer by stating that they wanted to help all the orphans or they didn’t want anyone else to die from HIV/AIDS, etc. It is as if they are compelled to help. They treat selflessness as if it is the most obvious thing in the world.

Not only are Luzi’s sheer numbers astounding, but their programs are equally impressive. They have departments and activities that include training youths so they can find employment, income generating projects, adult literacy, and more. One particularly striking program under “Luzi’s Activities” was “human rights and gender” where community members are reminded to maintain their dignity and humanity even through daily troubles.

After this look at Luzi’s main building, we, as is tradition here, danced. The four of us ladies were paired off with a volunteer from Luzi. Either my partner gave up or could no longer dance for laughing so hard at my attempts that I ended up pairing with Emily instead. I suppose two silly uzungus dancing together is better than one 

The dancing was followed by beautiful singing by the youth choir and a sort of comedy meant to educate others about the importance of knowing your HIV status. I’m going to go ahead and say it was quite funny based on others’ laughter, but I’m still not quite fluent enough in Chichewa to really know.

At one point the children came and sat down and as I looked up I realized I was staring at three groups, one of men, one of women, and one of children. They were the pieces of the community, the beneficiaries of Luzi and the volunteers, the young and the old. All looking at the six of us from SLIM. And I wondered what we could possibly give to them. To these people who are constantly giving, to the volunteers who devote their time, to the youths who devote their focus, to even the children who take care of each other, the 8 year olds carrying the 1 year olds as if they were mother and child. It was yet another moment, one of many in Malawi, where I realized I would never be able to give these people anything to equal what they have given me, what they have given us SLIMers. But we shall try.
After the delightful time we had at Luzi, we went on our way but were stopped by a pleasant refreshment break that the director of Luzi, Mr. Banda, had arranged for us. It included these sort of roll/donut like things which Ross was super pumped about because his Grandma used to make them. Further proof that street food is the best food there is.

Finally the night ended with an evening with Mara, Fred, and Gogodas. Mara, the unbelievable woman who started Paradiso, her son Fred, and her mother, Gogodas (grandma) who is basically the most awesome woman in the world (excluding my own mother) were kind enough to allow us to cook dinner. I refer to this as a kindness seeing as how everything we’ve eaten in Malawi is amazing and we were simply planning to make guacamole and a pasta dish. Luckily it turned out okay, and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Dessert included pineapple and a wedding proposal Fred made to Alexis. We all approve, yet discussions are still being held on how many cows Fred should have to give for the honor of marrying Alexis.

Did I mention Lauren, Ross, and Nick held a chicken? Needless to say I will no longer come into physical contact with any of them anymore.

The night concluded with a sky filled with more stars than I have ever seen in my life. Zikomo Malawi.

Ash

May 24, 2011

2011-05-28T03:07:00.000-07:00

Today was a very emotional day for all of us, and I personally felt like I experienced the entire spectrum of emotions throughout the course of the day.

We started out at Tilerane Orphan Care, where we were greeted with so many smiling little faces it made my heart sing. All the kids were so receptive to us, with every age group from infant to teenager running up to see the Azungu. Meeting with the volunteers, it was clear that there are ways in which SLIM can help in the future. One interesting IGA that I had never thought of was chairs. Yes, chairs. Tilerane wants to rent out their space for weddings, receptions, and meetings to various community members, and having a large amount of chairs at their disposal will allow them to accommodate such events. This is a simple endeavor that I hope SLIM can consider in the future to help support a great CBO that provides wonderful support to their orphans. We were also impressed at all the handmade goods the volunteers were selling. AIDS awareness beaded pins and bracelets, along with wristlets and bags made from chitenje material were being sold. We naturally had to pick up a few things for ourselves and souvenirs for our loved ones back home. We all bought some extra pins to sell back in the States and hopefully make Tilerane a nice little profit.

We all naturally fell into our various play areas and provided the kids with much entertainment. I broke out my secret weapon: bubbles, which the kids loved to catch and pop, their little hands reaching up and over one another’s. Ross discovered his talent for jump rope, and got a little too into the game when he landed on the side of his ankle (don’t worry Mamma Ross, all is well). Emily broke in the new soccer ball with the little ones, and quickly learned that maybe barefoot soccer isn’t the best idea from now on. Lauren and Ashley worked diligently collecting research before joining in the fun with the rest of the group. Nick tried to resist the bubbles, but eventually got caught in the action, and wandered around the grounds playing with all the children.

Paulina, one of the volunteers, led the kids in song and dance, with one of the tunes sounding familiar as I did the motions to “I’m a little teapot”. One of the little girls looked just like Nia, my partner child from Jumpstart back in Pittsburgh, and I was nearly brought to tears. Just thinking of the differences in education and other opportunities little Augusta would have compared to Nia was a little heartbreaking, but I know the volunteers are providing her with all the resources they can to help her have a successful future.

Our good mood from Tilerane was quickly dampened when we had to travel over to ESCOM, the Malawian electric company (the only electric company I might add), to sort out some service issues for Mchenga and Mwana WaZako. The shifty little man that met us was a little too jolly for my liking, so I sat up nice and tall next to him to make all six feet of me as intimidating as possible (I think it worked). Sadly, even though customers are still paying for installation of transformers and connection of service, the electric company does not have enough materials to supply all the customers. The man told us that while Mchenga has waited a year and Mwana WaZako almost 3, the government is still connecting customers who paid in 2008. It was disgusting to listen to the circumstances surrounding this situation, and I couldn’t help but think of the “structural violence” Paul Farmer describes many oppressive governments inflict on its people. Ross gave the gentleman a good piece of his mind and a new orifice or two might have been torn, but we still felt a little defeated after leaving the office.

However, no time to feel sorry for ourselves, as we had a Board of Directors meeting to attend with the Trustees of MPALUTI. Mr. Francis of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Ms. Irene from the REACH trust attended, and it was very encouraging to hear their kind words for the network. Francis echoed SLIM’s goals with MPALUTI saying that, “We must conceive solutions with the people as we are moving with them.” Better words couldn't be spoken. He mentioned how our yearly visits to the CBO's boosts their morale and encourages them to keep working hard at what they are doing. As he said this, all I could think of is how the CBO's do the exact thing for us when we visit them. He also remarked on the importance of psychosocial well-being of not only children within CBO’s, but the volunteers as well. This made the psych major within me giddy with delight. We discussed plans for training sessions for MPALUTI volunteers in the near future, led by Miriam, and she seemed quite happy with how things turned out. The icing on the cake was when Nick brought up our ESCOM situation and Francis nonchalantly mentioned his close relationship with the head of the Ministry of Energy, and how he would like to pull some strings to get this issue resolved for us. We were all so happy and thankful, I thought I would cry. I really didn’t even know how to react. I'm very hopeful that things will come through, but really can't believe it til I see it.

After getting back to Budget Lodge, our mental exhaustion kicked in and we relaxed, getting in a good night’s sleep to help decompress after the day. It’s on days like this that I feel the fire start to burn inside me, and I hope I can continue to help these people in their fight against the challenges that no individual or group should have to endure.

Love you Mom, Dad, Zac, and as always…

Peace and love

Alexis

May 23

2011-05-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

Zuka Bueno

2011-05-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

Simply put: today was amazing. Being our day off from visiting CBO’s, we spent it resting and relaxing with friends.

After a much needed morning sleeping in, Alf picked us up in a Subaru (Alexis’ favourite), and took us on a joy ride ‘round town. He showed us the new parliament building, giant convention center, and the “grand” new hotel (all being built by the Chinese). Mixed feelings anyone? Yes. Having so many friends who work so hard in rural impoverished areas, it’s difficult to see the government spending so much time, effort, and resources on opulent buildings for the government to use. The other side of the coin: will this help the economy and invest in the future of Malawi? One can only hope.

In any case, our afternoon with Alf was lovely. He and his witty wife MaryAnn shared lunch and drinks with us on their back porch overlooking their yard full of flowering shrubs and fruit trees. Gypsy their black lab, and Lady their “naughty” dog ran around adding to the fun, as we talked about life, Malawi, and how good Alf looks in his Tchenge pajamas.

Along with learning about Alf’s numerous hobbies, and his lovely family, we also began to peer into more problems with Malawi. Problems like Malawi’s empty Reserve Bank, or the questionable practices and investments that their president has been implementing since his second term started: a new flag that no one seems to like, permission of a huge influx of Chinese workers building the huge opulent government buildings who also sell products that are of such low price and quality its laughable, and a port for ships in the Shire River in a landlocked Malawi which only has worsened tensions with neighboring Mozambique. The frustration is palpable when these subjects come up. Thankfully the bliss of Alf and MaryAnn’s oasis home kept our blood pressures down and spirits high.

After picking lemons, eating fresh lemons which caused our faces to pinch so hard our jaws cramped, and discussing how we all should camp out in Alf’s back yard, we had to leave.

But there’s more…

We ate at a Chinese restaurant (more mixed feelings). It had giant lazy susans, delicious dumplings, and … wait for it….. Bie Joau (fire water). (shout out to my Heinz Chapel Choir China friends).

All in all, it was a good day.
Zuka Bueno.

May 21, 2011

2011-05-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

Muya Kaoma = life is good
Muoh Kaoma = beer is good

Why are been and life so closely related in this culture?

Hey all,

We began touring the CBOs (Community Based Organizations!) on Saturday with Paradiso. It is very appropriately named; the place is a small Malawian paradise. A small dirt road winds you up the side of a mountain/hill where people are breaking rocks into gravel with small hammers and deposit them into small heeps. As you turn the corner a small teal building emerges, poised at the heighest residental point. There is a small structure to one side where a cow grazes (and occassionally harasses the kids) and a porch that is always filled with women. Paradiso's success can be contributed to the strenght and determination of its director, Mirriam. She is quite possibly the most amazing woman I have ever met. She has transformed the lives of so many people and continues to improve her own. Shes quite the bundle of energy and takes charge no matter where she goes. The solidarity of the women who work at Paradiso is unmatched anywhere else we have seen. They are all so friendly and full of life. They also preform traditional Malawian dance and make sure to include us all. Man can they move their hips... All the kids laugh at us azungos because we aren't nearly as capable!

We spent the day entertaining the hoards of children that came flocking to Paradiso. We first encountered the youth group which consisted mostly of orphans and meet every other week. We got the opportunity to watch Mirriam interact with them all (a side of her I had yet to see!) and play games outside. There was also a few older kids who came by. I shouldn't say kids since they were nearly all older then me.... Woops... I thought it would be a great idea to play football (soccer) with them all before realizing that i've never played in my life an they are all just naturally talented. It ended up being the azungo females against the Malawian guys. We scored two goals! (thanks soley to Emily and Alexis...I contributed absolutely nothing...) But I think they were just humoring us and we most definitely lost.

It was an absolutely lovely day spent with amazing individuals!

- Lauren

May 20, 2011 Kuupeza in Malawi

2011-05-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

Kuupeza

Kuupeza, “chillin” in Chechewa, is more than a vague description of a current action; it is a philosophy of life. Malawi moves to its own leisurely pace, a far cry from the spastic speed of American life. The benefits to such a life are obvious. We all know stress is bad for our health. Ashley and I, however, did find that this indifference to urgency can cause some inconveniences when a busy day is planned.

After our usual breakfast of Irish potates, cased beet-colored meat, white bread, and eggs (to be fair the eggs were dippy, which was a pleasant surprise), Ashley and I arrived at a local internet café almost exactly at the time specified by the sign out front. Despite the supposed opening of the café, the lights were off, the door was locked, no one was to be seen. After about a half hour, two men nonchalantly walked passed, unlocked the doors, said nothing, and flicked on the lights. I guess they were now open. Must be nice to come to work whenever you want.

We quickly checked emails and performed other unimportant internet-related tasks before rushing out. We had a festival to attend. The Road Authority was hosting a private festival to promote AIDS education and awareness. They brought in Partners in Hope to provide free HIV testing to those invited and their partners. (To anyone reading this: I’m sure, by virtue of reading this blog, you support AIDS awareness and testing. If you, like myself, have never been tested, you should get on that because you’re a hypocrite, as am I.) The festival was full of rousing speeches and plenty of comedic relief. At least, that is what we gathered as nearly all of it was in Chechewa.

A few times during the festival the Paradiso dance troupe performed. They sang; they danced; they eventually got Alexis, Ashley, Lauren, and Emily to join them. Nick and I, along with a crowd of probably 70 others, were surprised by the skills of the gyrating azungus. Alas, they were apparently not good enough, as the four girls from the states were asked to dance in the back for the following number. HAHAHA

By the end of the festival, we were all exhausted; it had been a long day. We just wanted to relax. To our dismay, this was actually an option. With the exception of one or two small tasks, our planner was empty for the rest of the day. We could just chill. The girls were taught a new game by some our local friends, while I sat down to write out some postcards to send home. This was only cut a little short due to rolling blackouts that frequent the Old Town district of Lilongwe. The dark, however, did serve to make the stars over Malawi shine even brighter.

Our day eventually came to an end with some food, the discovery of American ketchup and Malawian rum, some music, and shoulder massages. What can I say; it was another great day in Malawi.

Ross “Valentino” Morgan

Moyo Kukoma! May 19, 2011

2011-05-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

Moyo Kukoma!

Today was a very important day for us SLIMers in Malawi because we met with a representative from all the CBOs in MPALUTI, i.e. Mchenga, Paradiso, Luzi, Tilerane, and Mwana Wa Mzako. The directors for Mchenga (Arnold), Luzi(Mr.Banda), and Paradiso(Miriam) were all there while there were representives for Tilerane(Cecilia) and Mwana Wa Mzako (Pauline). We began the meeting with brief introductions into each CBO, including updates, followed by a recap from the meeting minutes from last year. Mchenga has started a very exciting pig IGA (income generating activity) while Luzi is busy revising the number of its beneficiaries. Tilerane hosts a vibrant garden that is useful to its HIV/AIDS patients, beneficieries, and orphans, while Mwana Wz Mzako continues to support over 50 children with their academic careers. Paradiso continues to astound us by conducting numerous IGAs, sponsoring a student in medical school, continuing to educate the Paradiso catchment area and more.

These directors and CBO staff members are sincerely some of the most impressive people I have ever met. It is truly difficult to describe just how unbelievable it is to be in the room with people who are responsible for so much good. Many of them are responsible for literally thousands of men, women, children, elders, and sick people. And they were kind enough to share their programs with us, their hopes for the future, their areas that could use improvement as well as their successess. Every director had at least two or three new ideas, and we look forward to doing what we can to help while we are here for the next few weeks. Such tasks include trying to obtain electricity for Mwana Wa Mzako and Mchenga, purchasing some chairs for Mwana Wa Mzako, and looking into internet for many of the CBOs including Luzi. In addition, we focused a good portion of the meeting on transparency, and look forward to working with the CBOs with excel training, ledger reviews, and receipt organization. This will be super useful because it will make the MPALUTI network look professional, and will both attract donors and encourage respect of the network.

After the meeting we were rewarded with the most glorious of Malawian foods, NSIMA! Fear not those of you stuck in the states, we have been promised real Malawian maize flour and will attempt to make the delicious food upon our return. I’m not sure if Nsima has been explained yet, but it’s basically maize flour mixed into hot water and it becomes quite thick. You eat it with your hands with some kind of “relish” which is like a vegetable mix or meat with some sort of sauce...bascially the most tasty thing you can imagine. It’s the staple food of Malawi, which explains why we all think it’s extremely exciting even though Malawians don’t quite agree.

We spent the rest of the night working with our schedule for the rest of the trip (HOW HAVE WE ALREADY BEEN HERE 5 DAYS???) and practicing putting on our Tchenge (ignore the spelling). Tchenges are a piece of garment often worn like a skirt that women wear here in Malawi. All us ladies picked up one in the market the other day, and will wear them to the government-sponsored parade event tomorrow that Paradiso traditional dancers will be performing in. We haven’t stopped talking about dancing since we arrived in this country (really since we got on the plane) so we’re excited to say the least.

It was truly lovely to dig right into MPALUTI objectives and we are all looking forward to doing what ever we can to support these amazing programs. These CBOs are truly magical to us. The way they aid their communities, the way volunteers apply themselves so selflessly and new projects are constantly being considered, the growth they provide for their communities and accomadations these organizations make is truly phenomenal.

And for thos e of you who are still wondering what in the world Moyo Kukoma means?
The sweet life. That’s what is is to come to a country full of warmth, with people you adore, respect, and trust, and to work with truly inspiring individuals. Accept the cheese people, we’re all a bit mushy in Malawi.

Ash

May 18, 2011

2011-05-19T23:35:00.000-07:00

Zabbo!

Today we had a very productive day with multiple meetings. First off, we connected with an MPALUTI CBO, Mwana Wazako, to invite them to the directors meeting the following day and check up with them in general. We met with Polimwani, the director of Mwana Wazako, whose main goals are to assist orphans in secondary school education. Currently Mwana Wazako supports 54 orphans, growing from 43 in 2010. Sadly they are experiencing trouble with the electric company, so as Mirriam put it, we are to use our “Azungu magic” to help them sort things out.

After our meeting with Mwana Wazako, we traveled to City Center in Lilongwe and had lunch at the AfriCAN café, an income generating activity implemented by Paradiso Home Based Health. The AfriCAN café provides jobs to women in the Paradiso catchment area. We had a wonderful lunch of nsima, relish, chicken, beans, and of course Fanta and Cokes. It was good to see the girls were doing well and business was booming. After lunch, we traveled across the street to the Pendulums office, an NGO we have been working with in the past that supports local CBO’s. There we met with our friend Mike, who is now the director of the Pendulum Project. He explained the food security, scholarship, and malaria and HIV/AIDS education programs being implemented within local CBO’s.

We later walked back into town (we stay in Old Towne), which was a much longer and hotter trip than we had anticipated. We all got quite sweaty and dirty. So much so, that Emily at one point during our walk looked at Ross’s feet and announced, “Your feet kind of make me want to hate you.” Needless to say we were glad to get back into town. We then met our market friends to take us chitenge shopping. Let me tell you, that was an experience. We went to the REAL market, with winding corridors and narrow alleyways. Us girls picked out the most beautiful chitenges (the colorful fabric Malawian women wear as skirts and to carry their babies) in an attempt to fit in with the locals.

For dinner we met with Alf, another friend of ours, for dinner. He is a lovely elderly Indian man with plenty of stories to keep us entertained. My favorite is his concept of food, which goes something like this: We are all born with a certain amount of food we can eat in a lifetime. When we eat our quota, we die. No one knows how much food they are allotted, but if we make sure to eat slowly, we will live a long life. Alf will definitely live forever.

With our bellies and minds full, we were all exhausted by the end of our day, and made sure to have a long night’s sleep in preparation for our big meeting with MPALUTI the next day.

Samala,

Alexis and the Project Malawi Team

Chichewa for the day:

Sinde kufuna – I don’t like it.
Mowa masana – tomorrow afternoon
Usiku wa bwino – goodnight
Samala – take care
Maswela bwanje – How are you? (in the afternoon)
Chi bwino – I’m ok
Muo kukoma – life is sweet
Muo wa bwino – life is good
Sinde convasa – I don’t know

Pangono Pangono. 17 May 2011

2011-05-19T05:54:00.000-07:00

Pangono Pangono.

Little by little we are becoming more and more comfortable here in Malawi. I even heard Alexis say over a cold Carlsberg last night, “It feels like home.” But still, waking up and seeing the Malawian bright blue sky overhead each morning does not feel real quite yet.

Ross, Lauren, and I got to see our little block in Lilongwe by foot today with a quick jog in the morning which only begged for the locals to shout “azunga” a little louder. We didn’t mind.

After our delicious breakfast of freshly (but not so fresh) percolated coffee we joined Paradiso’s driver Botifa in the CBO’s brandnew white pick up truck on our first journey to the Paradiso office. Lauren and Ross braved the bed of the truck, and I assure you, once exiting the cities, the roads actually make Pittsburgh’s cracked and holed streets look like sheets of perfect pavement. But no bother, their bums remain unscathed from the bumpy, wild ride.

Once arriving, Miriam, the director of Paradiso, invited us into the main office where we were quickly offered the most delicious Coke and Fanta the world may have. Miriam turned out to be all of the amazing SUPER WOMAN that we heard she was. While feeding her year old neice in her arms, she explained all the relevant news that Paradiso had for us. Things are going great! Interestingly, she made a comment about the organization’s possible shift towards focusing more on TB in their catchment area.
“To be a happy Malawi, it needs to be TB free.” ~Miriam.

We caught the most breathtaking view of Area 24 today, where the children were more than happy to inundate around Lauren, literally howling at the sight of themselves on her digital camera. And even with the wind blowing, Alexis decided to climb a fairly daunting peak in order to capture the perfect picture, it was pretty perfect. Lauren tried as well, and uh, well let’s just say she tried.

The girls (even though Ross and Nick surely would have looked extra fancy with a baby on their backs) got to hold Miriam’s niece Malawian style in a Tchenge. Imagine a 15 pound baby on your back, a fifty pound basket of bananas on your head, another bucket of something or other in your left hand, and a 4 year old child holding the right. These women are incredible.

Once returning to Lilongwe from Paradiso, this time Alexis and Nick in the bed of the truck, naturally we wanted Nisima. “No can do,” said Ali Baba’s Restaurant, so we had pizza with plenty of hot sauce instead.

Osmalawi, Maurice, and Alan were quick to get our attention when they gave us each our first Malawian bracelets as presents and then took us to the closest pub to enjoy a much earned beer. What a treat.
All and all, the day was wonderful, like always. Should we begin to look at airplane prices for next May? (just kidding mom…kinda)

Emily “Still looking for a Chechewa nickname”

15 May 2011 Osadandaula

2011-05-17T07:17:00.001-07:00

We couldn’t have asked for a better first day in Malawi. First thing in the morning we met up with our friends from the market, Maurice and Osman. They were nice enough to take us to go fix our Malawian cell phone, and then since we didn’t have any definite plans they took us to Osman’s village in district 24. It was so nice. I was really happy for the team that right off the bat they were able to be immerged into the culture.

Walking through the market we got shouts of “hey boss!” and “azungu!” as all the vendors noticed our light skin and beckoned us to look at their goods. We ended up meeting with Osman’s friend who had a newborn with him who he immediately gave Emily to hold. It never fails to amaze me how nice and inviting the Malawians are. They walked us to Osman’s house where we met some people and then walked to one of their friend’s gardens where they picked us nzimbe (sugar cane)! I couldn’t believe it! The first day of the trip and we were being invited into homes, gardens and the lives of such wonderful people.

We marched through the dusty streets, taking in the scene of the running children, intrigued looks of the adults, and even the goats and chickens marching around. All while we tried to learn how to rip away the outer bark of the cane with our teeth to get to the sweet flesh inside.

Once we arrived at Osman’s niece’s house we had an entourage of children all of which were too scared to come up and say hello. Eventually they warmed up to us. Lauren taught them all a game, we sang similar versions of songs and learned Chichewan phrases from the guys. And yes…We even taught the kids how to dance to Jump on It.

To top it all off Osman’s niece let us watch how to make the local staple Nsima and the side dishes (they refer to as relish). SLIM Potlucks will be even more authentic next year! It was great. We sat on straw mats on the compacted dirt floor of their house, ate with our hands, drank Shake-Shake and Green, and enjoyed the company of our friends. It was grand.

Osadandaula Malawi, No worries.

Articles: Microfinance & African Farmers

2011-01-06T17:09:00.000-08:00

Is Bangladesh Trying to Take Over Grameen Bank?
Suicides in India Reveal How Men Made a Mess of Microcredit
African Farmers Displaced as Investors Move In

Spring 2010 Wrap-Up

2010-04-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

Great final meeting to the academic year! New ideas for the fall include:

further educating all members about SLIM's history and work in Malawi
more interactive meetings with article reading and discussion
movie/documentary nights
fund raising with a sports tournament or food sales
search for more corporate sponsors for the 2011 SLIM 5k/10k

If you have ideas, post them on the blog or email us at slim.pitt@gmail.com

Also, look out for summer emails with updates from Malawi and fall fund raiser planning!

Race Promotion!!!

2010-02-17T15:52:00.000-08:00

'Tis this season to deck the halls of Pitt with as many flyers as we can print out! For students this is our main avenue for advertisement so it is really important that we put a flyer in every possible place that someone would look. To make this easier, we've split everyone up into small groups and assigned a portion of campus to be flyered from now until race day. If you weren't at the meeting and would like to be assigned a group, email SLIM and we'll hook you up with a team. Aside from that, everyone in these teams will be responsible for contacting a campus organization so that we can promote our race at their meeting. If you can I encourage you all to speak out in your classes about the race. We're really itching to get at least a thousand runners for this race, so we've got to advertise like crazy.

SLIM Meeting Minz 2/1/10

2010-02-02T21:37:00.001-08:00

Hey peeps! Things are rolling smoothly along this semester as we're gearing up for the 5K/10K. We've reserved South Park for race day and are working on getting police officers and paramedics at the race. Liz is meeting with our other collaborator KPHP from Pitt Med School to talk about the race, so if you are interested stop by Caribou at 5 pm tomorrow.

Dave, a student from CMU, talked to us this week about his newly formed organization, Kenya Community Partnership. The whole idea started when a faculty member from CMU's business school went to Kenya and discovered in the rural villages that many of the orphanages were overcrowded. To fix this, the Kenya Community Partnership is planning to set up what is called a social enterprise model, where a business is set up to raise funds to met a social need, in this case, expanding orphan care. This model is similar to what we hope to do with our network of community-based organizations in Malawi to help them maintain their services. Because of our similar interests, Dave wants to collaborate with us in future.

JJ Krais and Rachel Murray spoke to us about their trip to Tanzania this last summer. The majority of their trip was taken up performing individual research projects at a local hospital. They learned an incredible amount about how medicine works in the Third World and the problems they face. One of Rachel's biggest setbacks during her research was the lack of extensive patient records. Many of the "doctors" in the Tanzania are not MDs but are rather given special training to perform all of the necessary tasks, most especially childbirth and pediatric care, but at times the same doctors can be psychiatrists! JJ found during his research that many of the machines and medical equipment the developed world "donates" to the hospital goes unused because the doctors and nurses lack training, the equipment is broken, or they simply have no use for it, as if the developed countries just dumped their old equipment on them with no question of whether it was needed. I think this is an important lesson for what we as a country do overseas: it is important to assess the needs of the community before we send aid or start projects.

Anyway, we are still planning to bring a speaker from Partners in Health to speak here at Pitt, and considering the dire situation in Haiti (where Partners in Health are headquartered) this would be a great opportunity to hear firsthand about work being done there. Stay tuned and I'll see yinz next week.

Great News for the Poor of the World

2010-02-02T13:19:00.000-08:00

Check out the Melinda Gates podcast from January 29th. I think we should definitely hop on this opportunity considering our direct links to community groups in Malawi. If anyone wants to help me draft a letter to the Gates that would be awesome.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/outlook

SLIM Meeting Minz 1/18/10

2010-01-19T16:37:00.001-08:00

I hope you all had a nice long weekend, but I sure did miss all of yinz that didn't come to the meeting yesterday! Oh well, we'll just have to wait 'til next week. Anyway, we were introduced to a new club on campus called Students for Food Awareness. They want to educate students on eating well and how our current food system is flawed and how we can change it. In addition, they'd like to open up a free dialogue with the dining halls about the origin of their products, because like all of you, I always suspected that those cakes at Market Central were made in a lab. If you are interested in the group, contact Eli Gabel-Frank (edg23@pitt.edu).

Next, we heard from Lionel Levine about his project Butterfly Medical, and open resource of medically relevant information with a hint of Facebook and a healthy dash of Wikipedia. The story behind the group is when Lionel went to India, he found out that many doctors don't have up-to-date medical information like signs/symptoms of disease, treatment techniques, current research, etc. Users of the program can submit their articles or tidbits of info like in Wikipedia, but all of these points are reviewed by licensed physicians. As of now the project is just taking off, but Lionel hopes to expand the network of contributors and users into other countries. If you'd like to know more or became involved with developing the project, contact Lionel (lml35@pitt.edu).

Next week we will not be having a meeting because we want you all to go see a presentation by One Life One World One Peace called "Child Soldiers: Modern Day Slaves". This is just one of a semester-long series of presentations on modern day slavery, but it promises to be very informative. So instead of going to the Cathedral, go to the William Pitt Union Assembly Room on Monday, January 25th @ 7:30 pm.

Later this week, there are some other interesting things going on. FORGE is hosting Simon Deng, a refugee from Sudan and a survivor of child slavery, who will be speaking this Thursday, January 21st in the WPU Kurtzmann Room (next to the Ballroom) @ 6:30 pm. There is also a Haiti Awareness event being held in 4130 Posvar this Friday from 2-5 pm. If you are interested in helping more with the situation in Haiti, I encourage you all to donate through Partners in Health, which is a public health initiative stationed in Haiti (https://donate.pih.org/page/contribute/donate). Just select "Haiti Earthquake Relief" under the Program bar and contribute what you can. If you don't have money to spare, you can always give blood at UPMC Presbyterian, some of which will be taken to Haiti. Just go in the general entrance (in the tunnel perpendicular to Lothrop St.) and go to the 11th floor cafeteria on any Tuesday during normal business hours (10-5). I'll keep you all posted on any other ways to help in Haiti.

First Hand Account for Haiti

2010-01-15T14:54:00.000-08:00

Sent: Fri, January 15, 2010 6:43:10 AM
Subject: a message from Amelia in Haiti

Dear practically everyone,

First of all, thank you for all your heartfelt messages on Facebook and email. I read them all, and it really touches me. It reminds me that I do not live in a vacuum, and that the world is watching - apparently with dedicated interest, everything that is happening on this tiny, and now truly, god-forsaken island. It is hard for me to respond to you all, because I don't have much time, and we have very limited computer access - and I am spending most of my time trying to get the material we are filming out to the world.

But rest assured, I am fine. Tired of course, a bit undernourished, but I have enough water and a more or less stable place to sleep. I am right next to the airport, and if evacuations are necessary, then I am in a good place for that.

I want to tell you a little of what has happened to me, and what I have seen - only because I am realizing that many of you are struggling to picture how life is for us - for me - and you want to know that I am ok.

Essentially, the entire world here changed in a matter of about 45 seconds. I went to work on Tuesday morning with a strapless maternity dress on that my sister gave me, and little pumps and a red bead necklace. At 4:48 I was calmly sitting at my computer, thinking about going home soon. I had just been talking through the door that splits my office with my cameraman's office, Blago, about leaving in the next 20 minutes. And I hear this noise that I thought was a really huge bumbly truck coming down the driveway by my office. So I stood up to see the truck - I mean, what kind of vehicle makes a noise like that really? And as I walked to the window, my brain computed that the building was vibrating, then swinging wildly from side to side. I wasn't scared, I was just perplexed, and trying to remember what to do in a situation like that - is it "hide under the desk" or "run outside". For some reason, I thought it was "stand in a door jam" so I was trying to get to the door of the building, which is 7 feet from my office. And I kept falling, and Blago was behind me, and I fell, and he laid on top of me to cover me - I guess he thought the answer was "lay on your colleague in an earthquake". And our other colleagues were behind us, one of them, crazy Logan the camera man who runs boot camp classes in his free time, was bounding down the hall, bouncing off walls and screaming "GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!" He grabbed Blago by the neck and somehow I found myself falling down our front steps, landing on our car which had crashed into our building. and then we were all kneeling on the pavement, rubbing our eyes. The shaking stopped. Then started again. And someone said "where is our headquarters?" Because all we could see was dust. No sunlight, no buildings, no thing more than 4 feet in front.

It took us more than 20 minutes to verify that our 6 story headquarters were no longer there. It's the type of thing that just does not compute. New Yorkers will understand this after Sept 11 - the building is supposed to be there, and you look to see it, but your brain can't figure out why it's not there.

In the shantytown outside our offices, the fates were the same. We sat huddled in the parking lot of our HQ, in the dark, listening to tens of thousands of people scream and cry and wail. Wail. I mean really, like a tide. And every time there were tremors and aftershocks, the hills moaned in panic and fear.

I sat there for five hours, and wondered if my family knew what was happening. I know they listen to NPR while making dinner, and was picturing what they were doing when the news broke. And I was wondering how the news would break, because we had no power, no cell phones, no nothing. And people were wondering about the other islands. Was there a tsunami? What? At around 11pm, I found a person in the lot with a small transistor radio. He was listening to Radio France International, which was reporting a massive earthquake in Haiti, epicenter in Port-au-Prince. Good god, I thought, is God really trying to finish this little island - I mean, how much more can it take? It seemed to unfair that Haiti had to take this on. And it was surreal that we were sitting in the center of the mess, and couldn't know what was going on - we had to listen to news reporting from Paris, that was getting their information from CBS in America. very bizarre. Me sitting there in my strapless maternity dress and heels, smudged with dirt and mud, sitting with my knees up and thinking of my family. And I really was regretting my choice of wardrobe in that moment.

I spent the night watching the rescue operations. Which were very sparse. It's hard to pull people out of hundreds of tons of concrete. Maybe they pulled 10 people out, and we struggled to see the faces. Is it anyone I know? Please be one of ours. I sat with a colleague whose husband was missing, and whose 1 year old boy was in her 4th story apartment in the hills above the city. She was stone-faced and silent, eyes wide watching the rubble. She was able to get home and rescue her child at 2am, her husband's whereabouts are still unknown.

We are just now beginning to understand who is not showing up, whose faces have been absent in the little recovery area we've set up in the logistics base by the airport. This is where I am now. It's an awful experience. To know that the people that you meet for coffee, the ones you say hi to at parties and bars, the ones you have stupid arguments with over email about catty, dumb shit - that suddenly those very people could be dead. Or worse, trapped in a small space, without air, in pain.

I think many of us get by right now on these things. First, the notion that "I survived". I survived. I am still alive. That building came down, and by some miracle, I'm still here. So I better be happy about it and not waste it because many people are not so lucky. And second, "there is very important work to do". There is - tons of it. Tons of rock to be moved, tons of people to be saved, tons of bodies to be picked up, tons of food to be handed out - and water. And for me, tons of TV to be sent out to the world. So we throw ourselves into these things, with gusto. It's better than sitting around waiting, and feeling helpless. And last, "miracles do happen". One of the security officers - a guy who would have been on the team that Eduardo was to join next week - was stuck under the rubble somewhere on what used to be the 4th floor. He could talk on his radio. He was awake, stuck in a hole. And the workers couldn't get to him - there was 2 meters of concrete between him and them, constant tremors, and too many fears of dislodging the whole mountain of stuff to get to him. But finally, today, after nearly 48 hours without food and water, he walked free from the debris, unscathed. And promptly resigned from the UN - who can blame him? When we heard this, many of us cried. "Thank you god - and please let this happen again".

So a few more details, and then I go. I am sleeping on the floor in the logisitics base - outside actually, because nobody really feels that comfortable being indoors and asleep. We all have a reflex to stay near exits now. I have my yoga mat and a sheet. I'm ok. I work all day, feeding TV material to braodcasters. Our camera people go out in the field, I am the one who gets the tape, edits it, and sends it off via internet. We have rationed water, and one MRE (meal ready to eat) per day, and we scrounge around for other snacks. So far I am fine. And with the international crews coming in, I am sure we will get more food and help very soon.

The city is... well. I don't really know how to describe it. It's sort of like everyone you know - EVERYONE - getting into a serious car accident on the same day, at the same time. Some come out without a scratch, and others - don't. Many of my colleagues lost everything. Some lost children, others a husband or wife. Logan lost his entire apartment and everything inside it. Me - in the face of all that - I am doing pretty darn well! And very thankful that Eduardo was not here when this happened. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't find him.

I thank you all again for your love and messages, I read them all, every one, and they give me a happy sort of feeling in this sad dark place. So keep us in your prayers. Donate money or - something - to a valid humanitarian organization. And keep in touch with me, I love hearing from you. I send all my love, I am sorry I can't write more, please don't worry, I am safe.

Love,

amelia

Interesting Article about Microfinance

2010-01-15T08:24:00.000-08:00

My dad read this article a couple of days ago and thought of SLIM, so he passed it along.

Lessons from microfinance

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8407288.stm

Stephen Lewis- AIDS-Free World Speaker (Today- jan 14)

2010-01-14T06:16:00.001-08:00

Stephen Lewis, co-director of AIDS-Free World, will speak on efforts to eradicate the disease at 6 p.m. today in the Magovern Auditorium at Allegheny General Hospital, North Side. The group is a new international advocacy organization that works to promote urgent and effective global responses to HIV/AIDS.

The talk, open to the public, is sponsored by the Allegheny General Hospital Registered Nurse Chapter of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania.

Mr. Lewis was the United Nations secretary-general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa 2001-06. From 1995 to 1999, he was deputy executive director of UNICEF in New York. He is also a professor in global health at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He serves as a member of the board of directors of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and is the author of the book, "Race Against Time."

First Meeting of 2010

2010-01-12T20:36:00.001-08:00

Welcome back! I hope you guys had a great break, that is, I hope you all caught up on sleep and forgot everything you learned last semester. We had a pretty short meeting but we had a great discussion about our hopes for the club: better communication via the blog, Sunday documentary parties and more get-togethers. Excellent ideas, everyone!

Next week we will have another short meeting along with a presentation from Pitt student Lionel Levine about his organization Butterfly Medical. The week after next (Jan. 25th) Pitt's One Life One World will show us the movie "Child Soldiers: Modern Day Slavery", followed by small group discussion.

The Minorities in Pittsburgh conference is January 29-30 at the University Club by Towers, and this could be a really great opportunity to network with other organizations and look for future sponsors for Project Malawi. We were thinking about sending a small group to the conference, so if you're interested in going, email us. In addition, like every year, we are sending a group of four members to the Unite for Sight conference at Yale April 16-18. This is a great opportunity to learn more about global economic issues and hear some awesome speakers. If you're interested, email Bethany (bsg11@pitt.edu).

Finally, another great movie:

"What Are We Doing Here?"

Wednesday January 13, 2010

6PM, A115 Crabtree Hall

WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE? explores why the charity given to Africa over the last five decades has been largely ineffective and often harmful. The film tells the story of Brandon, Nicholas, Daniel and Tim Klein who travel across Africa in an attempt to understand one of the great problems of our time; the failure to end poverty.

In the film, the Klein family travel 15,000 miles via public transportation from Cairo to Cape Town. They cross war torn and famine-ridden regions where aid workers, politicians, and inspiring individuals tell about the incredibly complex and often misunderstood issues that affect hundreds of millions of people across the continent.

Daring to ask the questions no one else will, the filmmakers invite the world to rethink the fight against poverty in Africa. Could our good intentions be causing more harm than good? Have humanitarian interventions prolonged suffering? Who is actually benefiting from our good intentions? These questions and many more are addressed for the first time ever in this groundbreaking feature length film. If you ever wanted to know what happened to the $10 dollars you donated to charity last year, look no further. This film will change the way you look at charity in Africa forever.

See y'all next week,

Clif McKee

2010-01-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

Welcome Back!

The first general body meeting of 2010 will be Monday night Jan. 11 in CL 232 at 8:40. See you all there -- please bring new ideas for SLIM for the coming year.

:) Liz

Final Meeting, Elections & Sesi's Goodbye

2009-12-08T20:55:00.001-08:00

First up, the election results are in! Mujidat is our new Vice President, I will continue serving as Secretary, Bethany is our new Business Manager, Nick B. and Chelsea D. are our new Events Coordinators, and in a clenching victory, just barely beating out her closest competitor, Liz will continue to be our President!

In some other sad news, this was our last meeting of the semester and this is Sesi's last meeting before he leaves for Senegal for the semester! So we've planned a going-away party for him at Miranda's house this Sunday at 8pm (I'll give you directions to her place later). I know you'll all have finals to study for, but Sesi will be gone for months so he needs to go out with a blast.

While your at home over the holiday, it's a good time to talk to your families about helping you out with your pledge for the race this spring. Finally, here are some other things to do:

GLOBAL STUDIES ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR THE WEEK OF DECEMBER 7 - DECEMBER 14

2010 Summer Study Abroad Scholarships for Global Studies
The Nationality Rooms Summer Study Abroad Scholarship Program was established to provide University of Pittsburgh graduate and undergraduate students with the opportunity to add an international dimension to their education. The purpose of these awards is to give an in-depth immersion experience of another culture for at least five weeks. The scholarships are the result of the committees' fund-raising throughout the year. Scholarships are sometimes given in memory of an individual, or by a donor whose belief in the benefits of study abroad remains constant. The scholarships available for 2010 are listed on the Website http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/natrooms .

Global Health Film Series "Pandemic: Facing AIDS"

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10
6:00 p.m.- 8:00 p.m.
A115 Crabtree; post-film reception in 109 Parran Hall
Free and open to the public
For more information, contact Tara Capece - tac46@pitt.edu

Forge Book Drive

Do you have books you're going to see back or are just lying useless, or
will be? Please consider donating them to a worthy cause. Think twice
before you sell a book back for a mere few dollars, a fraction of what you
paid for it. Maggie Tully is collecting school books to donate to a program
called Schools for Schools. Our university is partnered with a school called
Layibi Secondary School in Northern Uganda, and all the books will go
towards updating Layibi's library. Email Maggie at mjt58@pitt.edu and she is
willing to meet you wherever to pick up books and answer any questions!

Meeting Minz 11/16/09

2009-11-17T15:41:00.000-08:00

Another short and sweet meeting this week. Annie Nagy, Pitt's campus representative for the Peace Corps, stopped in to show us a really informative video about the Peace Corps and spoke a little about her own experience in Guinea. After from spending 2 years in West Africa, she has been using the French she learned abroad to work in Guadeloupe. If you're interested in working with the Peace Corps, Annie advises you to start your application your junior or senior year because the applications are looong. If you want more information, visit the Peace Corps website or speak with Annie.

Annie Nagy

Peace Corps

4400 Posvar Hall

412-648-7424

pcorps@pitt.edu

And in other SLIM bitniz, elections are coming up for 2010, so if you're interested in being an officer, email Sesi or Liz and say what position you'll be running for: Prez, Vice Prez, Treasurer, Secretary, or Events Coordinator. Elections are usually a pretty laid-back affair and you'll just give a small speech about yourself, your ambitions, experience, etc. Otherwise, that's it from us, BUT keep sponsor-hunting! If you weren't at the meeting and want more sponsors, email SLIM and I'll give you more stuff to do.

Sponsors: Places I went

2009-11-04T10:38:00.000-08:00

Hey SLIM,
I wanted to let everyone know the places I went to ask for sponsors:

Squirrel Hill:
Taza 21 (1827 Murray)
Color Me Mine (5887 Forbes)
Probikes (5876 Forbes)
Sirani Gallery (5875 Forbes)
Gallery Christine Frechard (5871 Forbes)
Biketek (5842 Forbes)
Oliver Flower Shop (5837 Forbes)
Massage Envy (5836 Forbes) =sponsored us last year
The Chocolate Moose (5830 Forbes)
Ten Thousand Villages (5824 Forbes)***
Contemporary Concepts (5820 Forbes)

Alot of these places seemed VERY interested. (Color Me Mine donated a $25 gift certificate already, and they do not know if they can donate more.)

**Check out Christine Frechard's Gallery. Her assistant was very interested and definitely is going to race. Services they have there include: learning foreign languages through art immersion with native speakers (French, Italian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and Chinese) You will be exposed to the chosen language through: Visual art, Craft, Music, Dance, and Culinary art. Check it out at www.instituteIAL.com

Ten Thousand Villages:
Fair trade nonprofit organization that sells handmade jewelry, home decor and gifts to help improve the lives of thousands of artisans in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Ten Thousand Villages accomplishes this by establishing a sustainable market for handmade products in North America, and building long term buying relationships in places where skilled artisan partners lack opportunities for stable income. Product sales help pay for food, education, health care and housing for artisans who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed.
-Anyway..... this Saturday Nov 7: They are having a Bag Sale. You can receive 20% off of everything you can fit into their shopping bag!! Tell them your from SLIM too and you heard about it, and maybe they would be willing to donate more merch.
http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/

Also, I am calling Dozen. I stopped in there today to buy some cupcakes and the lady told me to call the GM because they would probably be interested.

(Even though I am Team Shadyside I went to Squirrel Hill.....)

I will keep you guys updated on what they have to say!!!
Thanks,
Danielle Sorrells

Invisible Children, Moi Moi, and Grilled Cheese

2009-10-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

I can't believe October is almost over! Really it's been a beautiful last few weeks so I hope it stays this way a little longer. Our meeting was pretty short and was mainly focused on watching the original Invisible Children video, which you can watch in its entirety here (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3166797753930210643#). Also, we celebrated Liz Van Loon's birthday a little early with an awesome cake (her real birthday is today- Happy Birthday Liz!). Aside from that, I want to remind all of you to get out there and find sponsors. Ashley Miller found our first sponsor: The Holiday Day Inn donated a free one night stay for two as a raffle prize for the race, worth at least a couple hundred dollars. Congratulations, Ashley! If you've already called the businesses you signed up for and want more, just email SLIM with your name and I'll give you some more around where you were before.

Finally, we've got multiple events coming up with other clubs that will help fundraise for SLIM.

ASO present Taste of Africa

Tuesday, November 3rd

WPU Ballroom

SLIM will be giving a presentation about our work with AIDS in Malawi and our friend Siamak will also talk about his work as a physician overseas. Come eat, drink, and dance!

Hodge Podge

Friday, November 20th

WPU- Nordy's Place

This is an event SLIM will be co-ordinating with Feel Good possibly including some bands and more.

Git Sum Sponsors!

2009-10-20T19:47:00.001-07:00

Hope all of your classes are going well and that you all filled up on the pizza from last night (good call Liz!). As you all know this is the season for finding our sponsors for the SLIM 5K/10K in the spring, so those of you that have already contacted the businesses you signed up for, please post a comment on the blog under the big posting so I know what's been done. I will assign you more businesses in your borough, so keep your eyes on that blog post. Next week I will bring that list for everyone to sign up for more.

Since many of you haven't done much soliciting we split up into small groups and practiced talking to potential sponsors. For those of you that couldn't come to the meeting, a sheet of suggestions is attached to the email. The biggest thing is to get to the point, "I'm (your name) and I'm a student at Pitt representing an organization that runs a 5K/10K each year in South Park to raise money for a large project in southeastern Africa. Last year we had around 600 runners and we expect to have upwards of 1000 runners this year. I think your business would really benefit from the publicity you will get from sponsoring this race." Something like that. We also have constructed teams of people for each borough and these teams will compete to get the most sponsors. The team with the most gets a sweet prize:

TEAM SHADYSIDE: Meredith Kemgan, Jessa Koch, Cathy House, Danielle Sorrells, Chelsea D'Angelo, Christina Rak

GROUP AWESOME: Miranda Velikoff, Alexis Hoyt, Bethany Ground, Vivian Liang, Suzanne Cake

NICK'S GROUP: Bethany Ground, Nick Brink, Fatima Muhammed-Ighile

CLIF'S GROUP: Valerie Michael, Zoe Cesarz, Carly Sedlock, Clif McKee

TEAM A: Charles Pratt, Cory Malagise, Bill Grubb

If you weren't here and need a group or are in a group and need email addresses for your group, send SLIM an email (slim.pitt@gmail.com) with your name and email and what you need. If you signed up for businesses in a certain borough, I'll put you with a group with other people from that borough.

If a business wants to sponsor:

1. Send an email to the SLIM email account telling who, what, how much, etc.
2. Make checks payable to "Student Leaders in International Medicine"
3. Get logos ASAP (.jpg or .gif format, please) and send them to SLIM
4. Tell them terms of sponsorship are negotiable i.e., if they cannot pay everything to be on the banner but make an additional donation of food, they could still get on the banner

I encourage the groups to try and go out this week or this weekend and work together to get all of your sponsors. Things are easier in a group and you'll have moral support. Speak with the manager face-to-face because that's the best way to be personable and to ensure that he/she remembers you. There is a group going to the Pitt homecoming game this Sunday to get donations for the race at the tailgating parties. We hope this will be really lucrative and if you want to go, send SLIM an email and we'll let you know all the details.

Phew! Ok and some other upcoming things:

Peace Corps Info Session
Wednesday Oct. 21
4130 Posvar Hall, 2-3pm
Anne Naggy
Peace Corps Representative at Pitt:
pcorps@pitt.edu
412-648-7424

Also, the Center for Strategic and International Studies is having a Global Health Essay Contest for $500-$1000:
http://www.smartglobalhealth.org/pages/essay-signup

African Student Organization African Food Festival
Nov. 3, 8-11 pm, WPU Ballroom
This is going to be a lot of fun. Mujidat is currently working with ASO so that SLIM can do a lot of promoting and share in the profits. Mark your calendar, more details later.

Potential Sponsors

2009-10-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

I went last Thursday to Say Cheese Pizza Company, Lulu's Noodles, and Belaggio Pizza (Oakland Cafe on 315 North Craig no longer exists, I guess). I haven't called them back yet, so I don't know if they will agree to be sponsors or not.

Race Promotion Assignments

2009-10-17T17:26:00.000-07:00

I encourage you all to start talking with each other and work together on some of these projects, especially with talking to other schools.

Organizing flyering parties- Alexis Hoyt, Ellyn Mayher

Uploading info on SLIM website- Ashley Miller, Maggie To, Lauren Miller

Posting race info on race websites- Clif

Liasons to universities/high schools- Tawny, Chelsea D'Angelo, Brittany Garove, Danielle

Keeping tabs on SLIM members with getting sponsors- Fatima, Bill Grubb

Calling parties- Colleen Moroney, Shae

Business Solicitation Assignments

2009-10-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

Hey all! Here are the businesses you signed up to solicit. This will be a running list and I will edit this post as businesses are checked off the list. There are still lots of businesses that nobody has signed up for so I'll bring the list to the next meeting.

Past sponsors:

Fleet Feet- already done

KPHP- Liz

John McGinnis- Liz

Iron City Bikes- Clif

Tijuana Flats- Liz

Liquid Vision- Sesi

Road ID- Clif

Health Trax- Emily Riley

Massage Envy- Liz

Venture Outdoors- Sesi

Saucony- Mujidat

Mizuno- Clif

Powerbar- Christina

South Hills:

South Hills Central Blood Bank- Jenny Gutauskas

Ches Anthony's Catering- Emily Riley

David Physical Therapy- Adrienne Marler

Warehouse Café- Emily Riley

South Hills Health System Center- Adrienne Marler

Shadyside:

Doc's Place- Christina Rak

Piitsburgh Deli- Christina Rak

Shadyside Saloon- Christina Rak

Moda- Christina Rak

Shadyside Market- Christina Rak

Ten Toes- Brittany Garove

Girasole- Cathy House

Prantl's Bakery- Cathy House

Amazing Yoga- Valerie Michael

Strip District:

Firehouse Lounge- Tawny Duliba

Primante Bros.- Vivian Liang

Oakland:

Pamela's- Allison Jubon

India Garden- Jeeves?

Forbes Ave. Suites- Charles Pratt

Dave's Music Mine- Joe

Qdoba- Chelsea D'Angelo

Oakland Infusion Center- Miranda

Pittsburgh Oakland Enterprise- Miranda

Oakland Café- Ellyn Mayher

Holiday Inn- Ashley Miller

Oakland Oasis Tanning Salon- Miranda

Larry & Carol's Pizza- Ian Mesa

Food for Thought Deli- Colleen Moroney

Three Rivers Fitness & Sports Medicine Center- Bethany

Luna Bar & Grill- Colleen Moroney

Primante Bros.- Jen Niecka

BaBa D's- Alexis Hoyt

Union Grill- Chelsea D'Angelo

La Fiesta- Colleen Moroney

Quaker Steak- Cory Malagise

Spice Island Tea House- Alexis Hoyt

The O- Fatima

Mad Mex- Miranda

Say Cheese Pizza Co.- Ellyn Mayher

Dave & Andy's- Steph Tokach

Veracruz Restaurant- Suzanne Cake

Fuel and Fuddle- Chelsea D'Angelo

Uncle Sam's Classic Subs- Fatima

Five Guys- Cory Malagise

Lu Lu's- Ashley Miller

Starbucks- Vivian Liang

Caribou- Leah Turner

Penn Station- Bill Grubb

Personal Health & Fitness/Miscellaneous:

Everyday Nutrition & Protein- Clif

Thermal Industries Inc.- Clif

Training Revelations- Clif

JGS Management Services- Clif

Up Stretch Pilates Studio- Miranda

Paramount Athletic Club- Miranda

Pittsburgh Voyager- Miranda

US Occupational Safety/Health- Miranda

A Cut Above Personal Training- Miranda

Curves- Carly

Southside Ironworks Gym- Carly

Post-Gazette- Valerie Michael

Children's Hospital- Fatima

TRRA- Valerie Michael

Windmills and Running Shoes

2009-10-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

Man am I glad this week is almost over, but what a better way to come back from fall break than a SLIM meeting! As you all know (or will find out soon enough) fall and winter are busy times collecting sponsors for our 5K/10K in the spring. As members we expect all of you to solicit at least $200 from businesses in Pittsburgh or just from your family and friends. We need all of the backing we can get for this race and as we are expecting this year to be another record-breaking race (more on this later), we need to try as many businesses as possible. Attached are the sponsorship letter that should be sent to the business you are trying to attract and also a page of suggestions for making your calls to these businesses most effective. It is best that you visit these businesses in person and speak with the manager and follow up within 1-2 weeks. It would be best if you hear back from your businesses by December so all of the sponsorships can be finalized. We've divided up the businesses and the necessary jobs for race planning but if you forgot to write down what you signed up for, look for my next mailer with all that shiz on it.

Bob Shooer from our primary sponsor Fleet Feet Sports showed up to speak a little about his hopes for the 5K/10K and wow was he excited! This guy has tons of ideas! Firstly, given our breakout success with so many participants last year, he believes that we could market the race to a whole load of competitive runners in Pittsburgh. Another thing he thought of was to give all of the race packets to Pitt students before race day to prevent the huge pile-up at registration. Now that our route will be measured and certified, we could attract veteran runners that could use this as a time trial or a tune-up race in preparation for the Pittsburgh Marathon. Besides that he wants to beef up the promotion for the 10K by possibly giving those runners special shirts for the race, those high-tech, microfiber do-jobs that wick all of your sweat away. Oooooh ahhhhhh! His enthusiasm was excellent and I hope you all felt the same way and want to go out and get a load of sponsors!

Our bake sale has been put on hold for a bit, we may be planning out a new one so do don't put this cookie sheets away yet. We also have a new fundraiser coming up in callaboration with the Pitt African Students Association. They are having a large African festival in the Union Ballroom and we've been invited to have a table and sell some artwork and talk about our mission in fighting AIDS and poverty in Africa. This is November 3, Union Ballroom at 8 pm. Finally, we watched two short clips about William Kamkwamba, a young man from Malawi that at the age of just 14 built a windmill to provide electricity and irrigate water for his village. His story is incredible and it really shows that curiosity and ingenuity can really take anyone anywhere they want.

Daily Show interview: http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/
TEDtalks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crjU5hu2fag&feature=PlayList&p=5D4204BCB3BB50FB&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=29

SLIM Meeting Minutes 9/21/09

2009-09-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Once again we had a great meeting this week. If you missed it, here's the down-low. Firstly we watched a short video on how pharmaceutical patents make getting treatments to AIDS patients, especially the complex but effective drug cocktails (http://www.avert.org/generic.htm if you missed it). Second thing, those of you that want to work on Project Malawi, we're looking for about 5 to 6 really committed people. We will start the planning meetings next week and we'll go over some details about the trip.

Again, those of you that want to work firsthand with the 5K/10K please let us know. I think it's excellent that we've had so many interested people already. The officers are planning to revise the letter to businesses as well as the master list of businesses that we would like to solicit. Those will hopefully be given out next week. If you have any businesses in mind that you would like to contact, go ahead and give them a preliminary email or phone call to find out their interest in helping out.

As you all know, G20 activities are in full swing so don't be afraid to get out there in learn a little more. Here are some things happening around campus this week:

Drop the Debt: "African Debt and Development: Challenges, Opportunities, and the way forward" Tuesday, September 22 (today!), 7:30 pm at the William Pitt Union, Room 630

Voices from Latin America, Friday, September 25 from 9:30-11:30 a.m. – 121 David Lawrence Hall Auditorium

Leaders of the Hemispheric Social Alliance and labor, indigenous and environmental organizations from Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Peru and Bolivia, will comment on G-20 policies and offer alternative models of development.

Although SLIM does not encourage anyone to protest the G20, if you are going to the protest and would like to go with somebody, Sesi (512-363-2629) and Liz (860-324-6108) are planning to meet at the corner of Forbes Ave. & Craft Ave. on Friday at 2 pm. Just give them a call when you're on your way.

Besides that, remember that our next meeting is next Monday, September 28 at 8:40 pm in CL 232.

SLIM Meeting Minutes 9/14/09

2009-09-15T18:45:00.000-07:00

It was great to see all of you regulars back as well as some new faces. Our most pressing matters coming up are the events surrounding the G-20 in Pittsburgh next week. We spoke at length during the meeting about the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (the groups are represented by the G-20 members) and their roles in perpetuating cycles of poverty in Third World countries. If you missed the meeting and want to know more here is a link on the blog (http://slimupitt.blogspot.com/) to the PowerPoint presentation Sesi and Liz gave as well as some slides with extra commentary. We broke up into groups and discussed some of what we as students and as an organization can do to combat these policies. If you are interested in finding out more, stick with the club and maybe do some further reading and advocacy. There is a good list of books on the website (link below, click "Project Malawi" tab, under "Academic Objectives"). Here are some organizations that are fighting for legislation to combat IMF/World Bank policies and you can help lobby:

One: http://www.one.org/us/g20toafrica/index.html?rc=g20toafricaactnow

Jubilee USA: Change, Not Chains Act - http://www.jubileeusa.org/changenotchains.html, Stop Vulture Funds Act - http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/863/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1288

Invisible Children: http://www.invisiblechildren.com/theMovement/Get_Involved

As always we would like to start our work on our annual 5K/10K fundraiser starting this fall. There is a lot of work to do finding sponsors, alerting race websites, getting timers, etc. so if you are interested in working with the 5K committee please respond to this email. The People's Summit flyers we passed out during the meeting need to be pasted across the campus so get on that. Here are the details of the People's Summit and other upcoming G-20 events, so czech 'em out:

People's Summit: http://www.cmu.edu/uls/september/g-20-events.html

Other Events on Campus:

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

12:30 to 2:30 p.m. - Pittsburgh Athletic Association, Pennsylvania Room, 4215 Fifth Ave. (Oakland)

Forum with Finance Ministries of Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and India

Presentation and exchange with representatives from the finance ministries of four major governments from the Global South: Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and India.

Friday, September 25, 2009

9:30 to 11:30 a.m. - David Lawrence Hall Auditorium, University of Pittsburgh (Oakland)

Voices from Latin America

As always are next meeting is Monday, September 21st at 8:40 pm in 232 Cathedral of Learning. Next week we will continue to talk more at length about the 5K/10K and will most likely have another discussion on some health-related topics so be there to learn something. In addition, we are trying to organize a bake sale for next week. More details are on the way but dig out those delicious cookie recipes!

SLIM Malier 09/08/09

2009-09-10T22:22:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

We had our first meeting of the year last night and it was fantastic to see so many of you! We introduced our officers: Sesi and Liz, Miranda, Christina, Mujidat, and myself, as well as the club founder, Nathan Riley. We also spoke a little about our club's missions and our main activities throughout the year, most especially the SLIM 5K/10K and Project Malawi in the spring (you can read more about these on SLIM's blog [URL listed below]). If you missed the meeting last night and still want to be involved, come to our next meeting on Monday, September 14th at 8:40pm (room TBA).

In terms of what's coming up soon for our club, we are continuing to raise awareness about the G-20 summit coming to Pittsburgh September 24-25. One of our primary goals in this club is to educate people about economic imbalances and the forces that perpetuate them, so this conference is incredibly important to our club. We as an eBoard have been contacting other Pitt organizations asking them if we can give a short PowerPoint presentation about G-20 and global poverty issues. As of now, a few organizations have responded to us and we would like any of you to show up to these meeting and aid in giving the presentation. Just show up is all you need to do.

Wednesday 9/9 Microfinancing Against Poverty - canceled
Thursday 9/10 FORGE: Cathedral of Learning 206 @ 9pm
Sunday 9/13 Invisible Children: Cathedral 232 @ 4 pm
Wednesday 9/16 STAND: Einstein's in Posvar Hall @ 9pm

Please check our blog to see which organizations have not yet been contacted and go ahead and help us out. If you have any other clubs that you know may be interested in hearing our presentation, go ahead and shoot them an email as well. Other than that just keep an eye on the blog for any updates or new pictures.

If you are interested (as we all are) in poverty issues, check out this lecture at CMU next Monday.

Thomas Pogge, Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University
World Poverty: Explanations and Responsibilities
Monday, September 14 - 4:30 PM
Gregg Hall (Porter Hall 100)

Abstract: While world income has grown at an impressive rate, the share
of the poorest half has sunk below 1.8% percent of world income. Severe
poverty persists in many poorer countries, causing about one third of all
human deaths (some 18 million annually) and blighting billions of lives
with hunger and disease. What role do global institutional arrangements,
such as the rules of the WTO Treaty, play in the persistence of severe
poverty? And how does the causation of poverty affect the responsibility
of citizens in affluent countries to work for its eradication?

See you next week,
Clif McKee
Secretary

G20 Update

2009-08-19T20:27:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

I hope you all had a fantastic summer! We're really looking forward to seeing you again in Pittsburgh this fall. We just wanted to give an update so that everyone is up to speed.

Here is where we are with the G20 stuff:

SLIM will be on a panel at the alternative conference. Liz & Laura are confirming which panel we will be on. We should know by early next week, and then we'll need everyone who can participate to help in planning for the panel event. We'll definitely need people who have participated in past Project Malawi trips to be on the panel.

We're also planning to give presentations at club meetings in September to advocate about issues relevant to the G20, Project Malawi, and SLIM. We'd like to focus more on advocacy and education this year. Our experience in Malawi showed us that, as far as bringing about change, actions we take in the states are just as important as what we do in Malawi. So far, we are booked for presentations at:

SGAP
AIESEC
Pathfinders
FORGE
One World

We're aiming for 10 groups. Look on the blog to see which groups have already been contacted and which ones you should contact. Contact the groups now, so they have enough time to accommodate us in their schedule.

Here is the powerpoint we will use for the presentations (in PDF format):
The G20 in Pittsburgh

And here is some commentary for explaining the slides:
G20 PPT Commentary

That way, everyone can feel comfortable giving the presentation. I know we'll all be busy with move-in and the start of classes in the next few weeks, but we definitely need everyone who can to help give the presentations. If you can, let Liz and me know.

Right now, excluding the page entitled "The Case Against Structural Adjustment," the presentation is about 30 minutes long. It might be better to make it a bit shorter, like 20 min. What do you think? Please make suggestions and comments.

See you soon,
Sesi & Liz :)

Money-Driven Medicine

2009-08-19T02:02:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, after the G-20 stuff passes, let's do a meeting based around health care reform. I would be happy to moderate it.

There's a new PBS documentary coming out. It's based on the book by Maggie Mahar, who posted the following on her blog:

http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/08/money-driven-medicine-on-bill-moyers-journal-pbs-friday-august-28---.html

Apparently, we can rent out the film online to show it to SLIM.

What do you think?

2009-08-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

I'm emailing and facebooking ACLU, AIESEC, AED, American Marketing Association, Amnesty International, Asian Student Alliance, African Student Organization now. I'll blog once I hear from them!

Additional water info

2009-08-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

I just watched this recent TED talk. If you don't regularly watch the podcasts posted on TED.com, you really ought to.

In light of SLIM's recent accomplishments in water provision, this is an interesting afterthought.

The bottles are expensive, but we might want to try it out. Who knows, maybe they'll give us a discount is we write to the guy that designed them? I was thinking it might be a nice thing to give to the CBOs' top volunteers. There is currently no incentive for them, but this might be an interesting thing to present them with. Just a thought. I still think the wells are better considering the size of the CBOs, but these bottles seem great for more remote areas where people are more spread out.

Thoughts?

Project Malawi 2009 - Water Source Project Completed

2009-08-03T22:21:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone,

As you may already know, this past May, as part of Project Malawi 2009, six SLIM members, Sesi Aliu, Christina Rak, Laura Amweg, Cori Shollenberger, Jenna Merrill, and Cory Malagise traveled to Malawi for one month. The trip was exciting, educational, and successful!

While in Malawi, the students held daily reading sessions and nightly discussions about global health, poverty and development. The students also visited community-based organizations (CBOs) in the MPALUTI CBO Network providing health and social services in rural areas surrounding Lilongwe.

These visits offered the students an opportunity to learn about the programs and activities managed by these volunteer-run organizations, including orphan care centers, outreach and home-based care, and income-generating activities. The six SLIM members also conducted interviews with CBO volunteers about their experiences in Malawi, as part of a Univ. Pittsburgh Brackenridge Summer Fellowship project.

Another objective of Project Malawi 2009 was a water sourcing project, aimed at establishing clean, drinkable water sources in villages served by one of the MPALUTI CBOs. The pictures below feature the completed water sources, elephant pumps which were erected jointly by Pump Aid, a non-profit, and the communities benefiting from the well.

SLIM and MPALUTI's partnership is going strong, and we hope to build on this relationship as the year unfolds. Thanks to all those who helped make the Project Malawi 2009 Trip a success. If you would like to get more involved with Project Malawi or SLIM, contact one of our officers and come to meetings!

Sesi Aliu
Project Malawi 2009 Trip Coordinator

Summer Meeting

2009-07-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

If you are around in the summer and would like to learn more/contribute to our presentation for other campus groups, meet at Caribou at 4pm on Sunday, August 2nd.

:) Liz

Campus Groups for G20 Presentation

2009-07-23T19:50:00.000-07:00

Here are some groups on campus we could try to present to for the G20. The rationale behind the selections is that these groups might appeal to people interested in activism, regardless of what cause they promote or support. So hopefully: KNOWLEDGE + ACTIVISM = CHANGE

**ACLU Undergrad
Adventist Students Living for Christ
AGAPE Christian Ministry
**AIESEC
**ALPHA EPSILON DELTA (Health Professions)
Ambassadors for Christ
**American Marketing Association
**Amnesty International
**Asian Students Alliance
**African Students Organization
Big Brothers and Big Sisters
**Campus Anti-War Network
Circle K International
**Caribbean and Latin American Student Association
**College Libertarians
**Collision Literary Magazine
**Commuter Student Association
**Christian Student Fellowship
**Delta Sigma Pi (Business)
Engineers Without Borders
Engineers for a Sustainable World
**Feel Good
**FORGE
**Filipino Students Association
**History Club
**IAESTE
**Microfinancing Against Poverty
**Model UN
**The Original Magazine
**The Sprocket Guild
**STAND
**SGAP
**Student Peace Alliance: Pittsburgh
**Students Going Global
Undergradaute Economics Society
**Vietnamese Student Association

Note" ** indicates priority group

As always, feedback is encouraged. Please post comments.

Sesi

G20 Summit in Pittsburgh

2009-07-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

The G20 Summit is being hosted by Pittsburgh this year, September 24-25. The summit is a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from 19 "systematically important industrialized and developing economies." The 20th constituent is the European Union.

So, why is the summit important? The issues discussed by the G20, and the conclusions reached at the conference, will directly impact developing countries economically, politically and socially.

In other words, issues related to global health (e.g. poverty, trade, agriculture, development assistance) are at stake during this conference. What happens here in Pittsburgh will have ramifications in countries like Malawi.

In line with its mission statement, SLIM plans to play an active role in raising awareness about the issues being discussed at the G20, educating the community about global inequalities and their causes, and informing people of how they can take action to reverse these inequalities.

If you would like to be involved in these activities, please check the blog frequently for new information, or contact SLIM's officers:

Sesi Aliu, Co-president
sesi.aliu@gmail.com

Liz Van Loon, Co-president
lizvanloon@gmail.com

SLIM Party

2009-01-27T16:21:00.000-08:00

So, a few of us talked about having a collaborative party with other health- and African-centered groups, like POMS, SGAP, FaceAIDS, Black Action Society to raise awareness for Project Malawi and possibly raise some money for our trip. If any of you know anyone involved with one of those groups who know when the meetings are, let us know and we can go to their meetings and begin to set up something.

Socialized Medicine

2009-01-27T00:53:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone,

Remember to do learn something new about socialized medicine for our discussion next Monday!

Also, to those who are interested, we will be giving a presentation to some CMU students who will be participating in our race on Wednesday. We'll meet in Towers Lobby at 5:15, Wed. Jan 28.

First GBM of Semester

2009-01-05T00:23:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

Our first general body meeting this semester will be:

Monday, Jan. 12, 2009, 9 pm
Cathedral of Learning
Room 232

We will be discussing our plans for the new semester! We forward to seeing you there!

Measels and Viruses

2008-11-11T16:25:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

So I was reading this article about a measles outbreak in Gibraltar. A point worth noting is that Gibraltar is a very crowded place, especially for Western Europe. This leads to the notion of epidemics, and how we're seeing outbreaks in particularly overpopulated regions. The SARS and Avian bird flu scares, though not epidemics, both began in China. These diseases are sometimes difficult to transmit, but are also highly virulent. Take for example this new arenavirus in Africa. We can't ignore the fact that as the world's population continues to grow, we will encounter not only new diseases but resistant forms of diseases that we believe to have been stamped out eons ago (take, for example, the TB epidemic in Russia).

But even more interesting is that in Gibraltar, part of a developed Western European nation, the vaccine inventories were rapidly depleted. Thomas Friedman's new book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded", focuses on the effects a world with 9 billion people (projected to occur in less than 20 years) will have in terms of the growing energy crisis. What is easy to lose sight of is the increased demand in medical resources that will occur with a 30% growth in the world's population. With that being said, I want to throw this out to you guys, there is constant attention to the oncoming 'green revolution' in response to an energy crisis. But as middle classes continue to rapidly increase in countries like India and China, the demand for more medical resources will only exponentially increase. When developed nations like Britain cannot meet citizens' medical demands, should we be focusing on a medical revolution, one that focuses on a more efficient production and allocation of resources? And, broadly speaking, how would you approach this problem?

Presentation at Pitt Medical School..

2008-11-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone!

The Project Malawi group from last year was asked by our faculty advisor at Pitt Med School, Dr. Thuy Bui, to present to her Community Health Forum about our work in Malawi. These are lunchtime talks run by the Global Health Interest Group with whom we are collaborating to bring Mara Banda to Pittsburgh. We will be presenting "The HIV/AIDS Crisis in Malawi: A New Look at Community-Based Organizations" this Monday Nov. 10 from 12-1pm in 1104 Scaife Conference Center (the 11th floor of Presby).

Sesi and I are planning on meeting this Saturday afternoon to work on the presentation, be in touch with either of us if you want to come out and help.

Thanks :)

Liz Van Loon

Canning this Sunday

2008-11-05T21:33:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

I hope your week is going well. Just a few messages:

We will be canning at the Steeler's game this weekend. Here are the details:

Sunday, Nov. 9
12pm-2:30pm
Meet at Noon, at Fifth Avenue & Oakland Avenue (across the street from Children's Hospital)

Please come out and help us fund raise for Project Malawi. Go Steelers!

Sponsor Stalking

2008-11-04T10:25:00.000-08:00

Hey gang,

so today probably wasent the best day to utilize campus breaks... i hope you all got out and voted!

I emailed the list of business assignments so I hope you have all tried to start getting in touch with the general body to see who has actually been contacted.

I am meeting up with Sesi with the same game plan friday at 1, so i will keep you posted as to our location if you can stop by.

This will be a good start. At the GBM tuesday I want to have people sign-up to continue this effort. If we can arrange a 2-3 day span and have members utilizing daytime business hours i think it will much more effective. This is tentative if we can have at least one eboarder present throughout the day, however i doubt this will be a problem.

That phonebook doesn't stand a chance.

Ndimakukonda,
Alicia

ps-that means i love you, or love for one another, in chichewa.

Phone Solicitation

2008-11-03T08:41:00.002-08:00

Hey guys!

Tomorrow we will doing some phone solicitation in order to capture sponsors. I plan on arriving on campus @ 10 and finding a quiet spot where this can be executed. The location will be tentative. I have the eboards cell phones to relay this information, but if anyone else can come either leave your number as a comment or feel free to contact me at (215) 287-1686.

If you have a break come stop by anytime until 3:45.

I hope to see you all tomorrow!

Thanks for your time,
Alicia

Welcome to the SLIM Blog

2008-11-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the SLIM Blog! This blog is intended to help SLIM members communicate with each other. EVERYONE in SLIM is encouraged to contribute. Whether you have an interesting article to share, an activity to suggest, or an event you think would interest SLIM members, you're welcome to post it on the blog.

Important information about SLIM's own activities and meetings will also be posted on the blog. This way everyone can stay up to speed.

We look forward to getting feedback from everyone. If you know anyone in SLIM who would like to be a member of the blog, tell them to email the SLIM account (slim.pitt@gmail.com) and they will be invited to join to blog.

Thanks everyone. Happy blogging!

Sesi Aliu
Secretary

Mara Banda

2008-11-01T09:44:00.001-07:00

SLIM will be hosting a speaker from Malawi next month. The speaker, Mara Banda, is a director of Paradiso House Home-Based Care, one of the community-based organizations (CBOs) we work with in Malawi.

Ms. Banda is an amazing woman. After almost succumbing to AIDS, she was resuscitated with help from Ken Wong, a good friend of hers and the director of the Face to Face AIDS Project [http://www.facetofaceaids.org]. After being restored to health, Ms. Banda founded Paradiso. The organization began as a small support group for those with HIV/AIDS. It has since grown immensely, becoming one of the most well-known CBOs in Malawi.

Paradiso collaborates with a number of international groups and Ms. Banda has spoken at several international health conferences, including the 27th International AIDS Conference, held this past August in Mexico City.

SLIM and the Global Health Interest Group (GHIG) from the School of Medicine will be hosting Ms. Banda on Tuesday, Nov. 18 and Wednesday, Nov. 19. Mara's speaking engagements are also being co-sponsored by the Global Studies Department and will count as credit for the Outside the Classroom Curriculum (OCC).

We want to have a great turnout for the event, so we will be promoting heavily during the next few weeks. You can help out individually by telling your friends and classmates about the event.

Most professors are willing to let you pass out flyers for an event a few minutes before class begins, if you let them know in advance. This is a great way to get the word out. Let everyone know on the blog if/when you plan to promote the event in a particular classroom, so we know which classes have been covered. You can also put up flyers around campus and in your residence hall.

We will be flyering as a group during the next few weeks and will be tabling for the event soon. Look out for email reminders!

Here is a video of Mara Banda from the Face to Face AIDS Project website:
http://www.facetofaceaids.org/video/whereWeWork_video_02.html

THE SLIM 5K/10K

2008-10-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

This year, SLIM will be collaborating with the Kenya Pediatric HIV Project (KPHP), a group at the School of Medicine that works with children affected by HIV/AIDS in Kenya.

Like SLIM, KPHP has held a road race for the past few years to raise money for their program. We will be combining resources and manpower to try to put on a more successful race this year.

AS FAR AS PUTTING TOGETHER THE RACE, THE MOST PRESSING CONCERN RIGHT NOW IS SPONSORSHIP. WE REALLY NEED TO START GETTING SPONSORS FOR THE RACE. THIS IS CRUCIAL. WE CANT START PROMOTING THE RACE UNTIL SPONSORSHIP HAS BEEN TAKEN CARE OF. THE DEADLINE IS FAST APPROACHING (DEC. 15)

The fundraising goal for each SLIM member is $250. Donations and pledges from family and friends, as well as contributions from sponsors, all count towards this fundraising goal.

If we all make an effort to contact and follow up with sponsors and talk to our friends and families, we can make this happen!

We will be sending out emails to check up on those who signed up to solicit sponsors. If you have any questions or concerns about sponsorship, feel free to send an email to slim.pitt@gmail.com.

WE REALLY APPRECIATE EVERYONE'S HELP IN PUTTING THIS EVENT TOGETHER. MANY, MANY, MANY THANKS!!