Africa's Holy Healers

Faith-based organizations (FBOs) harness tremendous power to bring change. In a variety of development areas, such as peace and stability, the environment, world hunger, HIV/AIDS and children’s rights, FBOs have demonstrated that they bridge gaps, often where government cannot. Listen to this radio segment to hear about the good work that FBOs do in Africa in reaching people for health-care!

So thankful!

A year later..still thankful..

Things haven't changed much..I'm still thankful for the same things and then some!

See my post from a year ago when I was living in India:

Things I'm thankful for..

One Home Many Hopes

One Home Many Hopes | Be Unreasonable 2010

The promotional video for One Home Many Hopes' 2010 campaign to build a school with Mudzini Kwetu in Kikambala, Kenya.

"Reasonable People adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."

Breaking Ground October 18 - November 20, 2010. Be Unreasonable. http://www.onehomemanyhopes.org

Thanksgiving plans?

What are you doing this Thanksgiving? Know someone that may not have family around for the holidays? Google agencies like AMIS in your town and invite someone new to your table!

It's called Choice

To choose life is to love the Lord your God, obey Him and stay close to Him. - Deuteronomy 30:20

He placed one scoop of clay upon another until a form lay lifeless on the ground...All were silent as the Creator reached in Himself and removed something yet unseen. It's called choice. The seed of choice.

Within the man, God had placed a divine seed. A seed of His self. The God of might had created earth's mightiest. The Creator had created, not a creature, but another creator. And the One who had chosen to love had created one who could love in return.

This is a beautiful picture painted by Max Lucado of how we as human beings are created for a purpose greater than ourselves. By Someone greater than ourselves. And in so doing - we are spitting images of our Creator. We have brains and we have brawn. We also have a choice. To live our life as if it were one big blessing - in daily gratitude and returning love to the One who loved perfectly. It's called Choice. Love is a choice.

(Adapted from Max Lucado's Grace for the Moment)

What nonprofits can learn from Coca-Cola

Ushahidi!

Ushahidi means Testimony in Kiswahili. I'll let the video speak for itself.

What is the Ushahidi Platform? from Ushahidi on Vimeo.

Just dance! And pay attention while you're at it!

Pretty awesome way to get people to actually watch the flight safety demonstration! This makes me want to burst out a dance! :)

Family planning does NOT equate abortion!

So..today is World Contraception Day! Who knew?!

Well, I work in the field of public health with a specialty in family planning and reproductive health and I did! The one thing that is at the top of my mind today, on World Contraception Day, is the misconceptions around contraception.

Family planning is simply providing a couple with the tools (contraception) to choose when and how often to bear children.

You may have heard the terms 'family planning' often lumped together with 'abortion'. It is a complicated topic - often plagued with inability to find common ground, and might I add, misguided passion. I realize that in order to have dialog, one must respect and acknowledge the differing views and values that result in different definitions of abortion.

Definitions and language are important. The simple question of what constitutes a pregnancy needs to be defined. Even as an university-educated student, I thought that life was formed at fertilization (when an egg and sperm come together). However, I learnt that, medically, a pregnancy is defined when the fertilized zygote undergoes implantation. In fact, 1/3 of fertilized zygotes will not implant, and will be 'aborted' naturally by the body.

This difference in definition is important when classifying and defining those things that can cause termination of said-pregnancy (i.e. abortaficients). While the average Joe (or Jane!) does not seek to understand the mechanisms of action of the different forms of contraception, misconceptions need to be dispelled.

As someone that values life - I want to see a global reduction in abortions. From an economic standpoint, abortions are expensive! Women who don't have access to contraception will find themselves pregnant and will seek abortions, especially if the pregnancy is unplanned. Botched abortions (especially, in places where access to health-care is limited) can result in death or disability of the mother. These costs to society are expensive - children grow up without their mothers, families suffer loss of income and incur out of pocket costs for medical care, not to mention mental/psychological trauma that a woman goes through when undergoing an abortion, etc..etc.

Family planning is one of the single best ways to reduce abortions!

Think about it: if you provide a woman the tools to prevent pregnancy, then you will reduce the need for said-woman to seek an abortion!

The reality is that many women, especially in the Global South, do not have access to simple things like condoms, birth-control pills, or injectable contraceptives. If access is there, then it is patchy at best. And even if access is 100% guaranteed, it is not guaranteed that a woman has the ability to make that choice to use contraception. In a male-dominated world, women simply not have the same ability to negotiate sex.

As a Christian public health professional, I value life. Life of women. Life of children. Life of families. I want to see women, regardless of where they live, and how much money they make or don't make, receive access to and education about a wide range of quality contraception.

So today, on World Contraception Day, while an estimated 215 million women worldwide want to avoid pregnancy and plan their families but are not using modern contraception, it is my hope that this post caused at least one person to pause and think.

Musicka - Cheb Khaled

Hat-tip to my sister for introducing this lovely love-song to me. Now, if only I can find me a man who can serenade me with some French-Arabic music! ;-)

Something about music in another language is simply fascinating to me! This Algerian musician has earned accolades in France and is a household name within the Arab world. I grew up around his other hit song Didi in Mombasa, Kenya (which incidentally he performed for the opening ceremony of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa). Love his music! Check out his Wiki page to learn more!

Blue Skies

Ah, the joys of technology!! I am in an airplane and we actually have Internet on the plane! I had heard of it – now I get to experience it. This is a crazy world where people get to take their neurotic attachment of being always connected to the World Wide Web to the top of the world. Quite literally. Whatever happened to the simple life? Sigh.

But – I won’t complain – I get to blog from 35000 feet above the ground – how cool is that? So...my flight was delayed by 4 hours and I’ll likely get home at about 4am. BUT here’s where the glass-full side of me that comes out: I am watching a lightning storm out of my plane window and listening to my favorite songs of Hope. It’s an amazing and a beautiful thing. I SO wish that my camera wasn’t packed away in my checked luggage!! I would LOVED to have attempt to capture the beauty of it all. Night shots and black/white photographs are my favorite things. Difficult to capture things without the vibrancy of color, but the challenge makes a good picture worth the effort.

Anyways – I’ll attempt to describe what I am seeing outside right now but you will be stuck with my feeble attempts to use words to describe a glorious picture. J

If you’ve never witnessed a lightning storm from above ground, it is a phenomenal thing! It is currently 11.30pm at night – pitch black outside, save for the little lighted dots on the ground that represents human existence. As I listen to my favorite worship songs, the clouds are lighting up – almost in sync with the music! It’s like being a disco club – with lights going on and off. They almost seem to be almost fighting – sort of challenging each other! Who has the most brilliant strike of lightning? Me! Me! They say. Bam! Bam! The entire sky is being lighted up in a dazzling array of cloud shapes and colors. Sometimes I can actually see a strike of lightning strike another within a cloud and the result is orangey/reddish colors. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!

(sigh) I simply want to ask God – how the heck did you create such beauty? You’re a genius. I mean, I know how charged particles create static electricity in clouds. But that took years for the human brain to fathom and understand! You, Lord, simply spoke these things into existence. Or something like that. While my evolutionary-theory-trained mind cringes at the above sentence that I just wrote, I still cannot believe that all these things are due to chance. There is too much complexity in nature to completely rely on the notion that chance incidents led to the cascade of forty chain biochemical reactions that lead to clotting of the blood, or that the human eye with its rods and cones – one of nature’s most amazing inventions – is a freak accident...or what I am seeing outside my airplane window – a beautiful lightning storm in the clouds – is a due to colliding forces from beyond yonder.

I am simply joyful. Little things like this remind me that my source of joy and hope is my Lord. I may stumble, fail, or rebel with each new struggle I face on the ground, but my strength is always renewed when I place my joy on the Creator of blue skies. Peace to you all.

Breast Ironing

Just when I thought I had heard it all...

Breast Ironing - a practice in Cameroon - to 'flatten' the breast of pubescent girls in an effort to deter unwanted sexual attention and possibly rape. What has our world come to?

The Opposite of Love is not Hate...but Fear.

I visited my housemate’s church today and heard the above line. I won’t go into the nuances of the sermon taught by a guest preacher Gene Robinson on a topic which deserves an entire blog post of its own: homosexuality and the Christian church. He threw the above-mentioned line in response to the question of how to respond to those in the church who show retribution against the LGBT community. The line above stuck with me today and has given me much to think about...I could write a book!

For starters, what is love really? Who are the subjects of my love? Both questions have been answered for me in the Bible. The what: The Bible tells me Love is supposed to be sacrificial and focused on the needs of others and not my own. The who: my biggest imperative as a follower of Jesus is to love God and to love people in my life. But what does it mean to love God? An entity that I haven't seen but simply believe exists. And how do I really love people? Especially when my social construct and definition of love may be different from those around me.

However - this is not a post about Love. It's about Hate and Fear. The preacher went to speak about homosexuality - a topic that makes my mind normally spin in 10-million directions - but today my mind was riveted on to this: When am I most prone to hate? What things am I bitter about? Why do those feelings arise? Who causes those emotions to arise? Is it things like hunger, poverty, oppression and war in some far off land? Or is it when something close to my heart hits home.

And what is hate anyway? Is it a bitter feeling against an event or a person? Webster defines hate as an intense feeling of dislike and hostility. Most of us are uncomfortable using the word 'hate' against people - as it denotes too strong an emotion, and perhaps we want to be perceived as balanced, rational beings. In fact, as I write this - I wonder - is there any thing or person that I actually hate? I cannot think of one person that I hate. However, to be completely candid, there are people who are not high on my favorite-people-list. Do I hate them? No. Do I have a hard time loving them? Yes.

While I deeply care about many issues especially that which relates to injustice and inequality even in far-off international settings and I hate - for example corporate money-making machines that exploit poor people in sweat shops and I hate people who fuel the market for child pornography and the sex industries in places like Mumbai and Bangkok, I find that I am most prone to 'hate' when feeling slighted by those that claim to care for me and that I care for. Family who are a part of my human existence and friends who make my social being a reality.

And so - what is it in my struggle to love someone that inspires this 'hate'? A sense of injury is usually tied to this 'hate'. I couldn't care less if a stranger off the street said or did something mean towards me. But if family/friend failed me, it is often difficult to love them. I often have to relearn how to love again instead of holding onto hate.

Today - I understood for the first time the notion that fear can be tied to hate. That fear of self and fear of man could drive the underlying sense of injury which then leads to 'hate'. Instead of loving someone, I am fearful and afraid of what they could do to me, and how they could crush me at my most vulnerable state. How is it that the Fear of Man cripples us so much so that we choose to hold onto 'hate' instead of looking beyond the immediate and choosing to love?

(sigh) I don't know. My responses towards others are conditioned from years of interacting with other human beings. As self-aware as I try to be, I'll likely still do both - love and hate. It's part of my innate human nature, I suppose. However - as I learn more and more how to be like Jesus, I hope that I can let go of my fear and learn to love others well.

Getting the travel bug again..

The World's Most Spectacular Roads

Milford Road, New Zealand.

Photo credit: Macronix

So much of the world to be seen...so little time..(sigh)

Musicka - Natalie Grant

This is what it means to be held...

Food talk: Tabaq

Credit:Molly V. Strzelecki, Special to Metromix

I love being outdoors. Being cooped up all week indoors, I look for opportunities to be outside as much as I can. (Don't ask me how much outside-time I spend when it is 105 degrees, like it has been this past few weeks in DC!!)

Anyways, Tabaq is a beautiful outdoors roof-top terrace restaurant on the U-street corridor of Washington, DC. I wish more restaurants would do this! Great views of the neighborhoods and monuments in Washington, DC.

I've been four times and haven't been disappointed. First time for a friend's birthday party - good music, good drinks, great service. The subsequent times, I met people for happy hour and also have had dinner once. I'm partial to Mediterranean cuisine, and have to say that what I've ordered thus far has been good. I will admit that the I will admit that it is a little on the pricey side - but then I suppose DC is an expensive city. It's definitely on my list of favorite roof-top places to eat at.

For all you single Mac lovers!

Okay..what will Apple come up with next?!

This is why you should exercise

Why we have earthquakes

AP file photo

So..this is why we've been having so many earthquakes lately. Apparently, women can make the earth move! ;-)

Food talk: Busboys and Poets

A name like Busboys and Poets is bound to get a double-take. At least, it did for me. I walked past this snazzy establishment one fine Tues evening. Later that week, my housemate tells me that it should be on my ‘Things-to-do-in-DC list’. So today, I set out to scratch that off my list. Mission: to take my friend K visiting from Beantown to a fine DC establishment in an effort to show him what stuff DC is made of (and in the process – discover DC for myself! Ha!)

So..much has been written about this place (dang, if there’s a Wiki page to something, no need to reinvent the wheel, ya know?) so I won’t go into the humdrum of what this is. I’ll simply give my own impressions and hope that I win over more business for this place. (Not that it needs it..it seems to have enough word-of-mouth advertisement going on!)

I got the Grilled Brie Panini with spinach, caramelized onions and tomatoes on ciabatta bread. K got a burger with gorgonzola cheese, and the regular stuff that goes on a burger. I liked my food. What I loved better was the burger that my friend got! YUMMY – I never knew gorgonzola and moo (aka beef) went SO well together! This is definitely one that I'm going to try creating at home! (Thank the good Lord for sunny weather and backyard bbqs!)

What I loved the best though was the ambience of the place – the resto is a coffee-house-lounge-bookstore-restaurant. People come here to work on their laptops (yay! free wifi!), drink coffee, enjoy some libations after work, check out their books, listen to poetry being read or simply come out to eat. Definitely an interesting place! Would love to go again, if only to simply read on their comfy couches and people-watch! ha! Check it out if you’re in DC. :)

Musicka - The Summons - John Bell

Heard this song last year at church...powerful words. I love the reminder to always be obedient to God, no matter what life throws my way.

Will you come and follow me
If I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know
And never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
Will you let my name be known,
Will you let my life be grown
In you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind
If I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind
And never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare
Should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer
In you and you in me?

Will you let the blinded see
If I but call your name?
Will you set the pris’ners free
And never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean,
And do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean
In you and you in me?

Will you love the ‘you’ you hide
If I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
And never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found
To reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound
In you and you in me?

Lord, your summons echoes true
When you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you
And never be the same.
In your company I’ll go
Where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I’ll move and live and grow
In you and you in me.

All things nuclear!

Living in the nation's capital comes at a price - you gotta contend with the city shutting down when 40+ heads of state descend on your town!

The subject - all things nuclear.

In one of the largest gatherings of heads of state in history, President Obama invited more than 50 presidents/prime ministers to discuss how to secure vulnerable nuclear materials and prevent acts of nuclear terrorism.

The city hasn't seen this large a security curtain since Inauguration Day. It is said enough downtown streets are to be closed to cause two days of gridlock! All I can say – watch/read the news to see what action steps result from the summit. And thank God for ‘working from home’!

All talk..

So..it's been an interesting time since I got to Washington, DC to work as a project manager for a small Christian NGO on reproductive health/family planning grants. In the short time I've been here, I’ve met congressional staffers from Senators and Congressmen’s offices, met a Senator (!), participated in high-level meetings at USAID, met with the vice-president of a multi-national public health company. It’s amazing who you run into here. My next-door neighbor for two weeks was the Chief of Staff to a Senator!

In the whirlwind of meeting and being introduced to ‘important’ people..and learning how to talk the talk and walk the walk, I’m realizing that there’s a lot of TALK here! On a daily basis, I participate in at least one conference call or go to a meeting where people get paid BIG money to sit around a table and talk! Makes me wonder...how much the talking is helping. How much difference is it making on the ground..in the life of the child who is suffering from hunger and the woman who couldn’t get to the nearest health-clinic on time while giving birth, and the man who has to make a choice between food and medicine for his family. Really...how much difference does it make what old white men sitting in air-conditioned offices in Washington, DC say?

Am I jaded already, you may ask? I don’t think so...at least, I hope not. Am I wary of all the ‘politics’? Heck yeah! But I am here. As wary as I may be, I am here to do a job – and do it well. I am called to bloom wherever I am planted, so I hope to bloom. Hope to speak for those from the field who may not have an organized voice, and may not have glossy paper reports but do do good evidenced-based public health work from a faith persepective. Wish me luck! :-)

DC Life

So folks, I'm now in DC! My endless roaming around this planet has to come to an end someday...and it shall soon, but for the next few months, I'll bask in our nation's capital. It's weird place, I must say. Here's some random observations to date:

• DC's Metro is incredibly efficient! After living in Boston, it seems to be almost sinful to have a subway announce it's arrival in spans of minutes!
• Speaking of the Metro, I love the architecture of the underground stations. Very snazzy. Although, I'm not the biggest fan of the LONG escalators going down underground. My fear of heights come in full-swing every morning!
• Black. It's everywhere. This city has NO sense of style! Aiy..yai..yai. Everyone wears black coats, black suits, black heels, black skirts, black everything! I mean, don't get me wrong, I think black is cool. But come ON, people! Where's the sense of style and color?! I'm no fashionista but I do like to look pretty. Almost felt like Elle Woods in Legally Blonde in my non-black clothes.
• Clean. In contrast to some of the places, I've lived in - this seems to be one of the cleanest cities. In fact, it's a sin to eat or drink on the Metro! I remember landing in New York from India and walking around in Harlem and thinking THAT was clean. Ha!
• Personalities. I haven't quite made up my mind on this one yet. Still wanting to be proven wrong on my initial assessment that DC attracts certain personalities. And it's almost incestuous how everything is related to politics and development. I'm so not sure about wanting to be a part of that world...
• Layout of the city. The grid of the roads and the layout of the city is incredible. Makes it easy for newcomers to find their way around.
• Spring in DC is BEAUTIFUL!! :)

We'll see. This city is yet to woo my little heart. Will keep y'all updated.

Happy Pi Day!

Pi Day

Happy Pi day!

Go ahead..be a nerd and enjoy some pie today! ;)

Quotable Quotes

Random sentences that have made me laugh..

If I can navigate around cows and dogs and their respective poops in India, I can make it in anywhere!

- ha!

You just don't stink. You stank! (insert ghetto accent)

- my sister's trying to tell me something.

You are so much more than a grant-proposal. You are a person!

- an attempt to cheer up a friend

You don't know John Legend??! Have you been living in a cave? Oh..wait, India IS a cave!

- again, my sister trying to say something. (I'm ignoring her..ha!).

Devina: What day is it? The fourth?
Emily: Yup, the fourth.
Devina: Of July?
Emily: That's a holiday. You know if you weren't brown, I would think you were a blonde.

- enough said.

Devina (singing at the top of her voice): Sweet Alabama... oops, I mean Carolina.
Emily: You mean Sweet Caroline?"

- Again, enough said.

His Timing. For My Good.

Why does God wait till the money is gone? Why does He wait till the sickness has lingered? Why does He choose to wait till the other side of the grave to answer prayers for healing? I don’t know. I only know that His timing is always right. I can only say that He will do what is best...Though you hear nothing, He is speaking. Though you see nothing, He is acting. With God, there are no accidents. Every incident is intended to bring us closer to Him. (Adapted from Max Lucado's Grace for the Moment)

Depend on the Lord; trust Him, and He will take care of you. (Psalm 37: 5)

While I have trouble trusting in these truths on most days, I do know that things always happen in His timing. And for my good.

Oye!!! Merry Christmas!

Since I missed out on the holiday season this past year...

a friend saw it fit to send me the above video! It's now stuck in my head..and I see it fit to share the love! Enjoy!! :)

Oh...how much I missed thee.

Dear Cinammon Swirl Bread, It is good being reunited with you. Sincerely, me.

....and in no particular order, some things that I have enjoyed this week since I got back from India...

1. Cinnamon Swirl bread (the Pepperidge Farm kind..with Smart Balance butter! Yum!)

2. Plush couches (the kind that you can actually sleep on!)

3. Hot showers with water pressure that actually creates wind in the shower!

4. Dark green salads out of a bag that won't make me sick

5. Phone customer service representatives that actually know what they're doing

6. A kitchen! To make my own food - just the way I like it. (not that I've actually done any cooking thus far)

7. Momma's tender loving care. Got sick on the trip back and have been unwell since I landed. Its nice to be taken care of..

8. Basil-mozarella-tomato sandwich. Been eating this non-stop! You'd think I'd want some meat. Go figure.

9. TP in public bathrooms. Gone are the days where I carry my own personal stash of TP everywhere I go.

10. Netflix. I can play catch-up on my TV-less state and watch some good ol' movies/TV while sipping on whatever culinary goodness my mother conjures up to nurse me back to health.

11. Internet. I get to use 'unlimited' internet as opposed to 'pay-per-use internet'. Which means, I get to stalk friends gloriously on facebook when I should be job-searching ;)

...in short, I'm a fallible human being with a propensity to be gravitated towards the luxuries of life in America. Yes, living in India was wonderful - for all the experience had to offer. But being back is good, too. :)

Back home!

'Welcome to the United States of America'.

Something about these words at the immigration post on Newark International Airport on a cold dreary wintery Saturday morning had a soothing comforting ring to them. I was back. After a short stint working for an NGO in India, I was back.

I could write much to reflect on the past year - could fill tomes on the experiences, the work, the sheer joys of helping people, utmost periods of loneliness away from family and friends, the beautiful places that I saw, the delicious food that I ate, the many conversations that I had with the wonderful people I met, and the sheer diversity that is India. Great life experience - as a friend recently told me. I wouldn't trade it for a second!

But for now, I'm glad to be back home.

Yes, I said home. America has strangely become home in the short time that I was gone. Kenya will always remain home - place of my birth, and India will always remain the country of my roots, but America is now my home. And I'm glad to be home..where those that I call my own live.

To give or not to give

I landed in India in late August. Almost immediately...all five senses were tantalized. From the plethora of food options that teased my taste-buds, to the smells and sounds (talk about the ubiquitous honking of cars!) And the sights! India is a beautiful country...with mass disorganization and chaos, but with raw beauty and warm people. To say that India is capable of bringing out every single emotion out of you is an understatement.

One of the sights that has haunted me since I landed in this wonderful country is the sight of children begging. I took the picture above many moons ago.

I cannot reconcile proximity that stark poverty has to ultimate opulence. To see people living in shanties on the sides of roads in Mumbai and the sight of little ones with tattered rags in New Delhi doing little tricks in the hopes of procuring a few rupees simply breaks my heart. And right next to the largest slums in Asia are high-rise apartment buildings with every single amenity that money can buy. I had read that the divide between the rich and the poor is great here – but to see it in actual terms is quite disconcerting.

And mentally – I still haven’t reconciled what to do when a child comes up to me to beg for money. What is the best thing for that child – to give or not.

Does giving away money serve as a temporary solution akin to a bandaid over a leaky faucet? Or does it serve an immediate need to feed an empty stomach? Or does it simply sooth our conscience that our daily quota for a ‘good-deed’ was met?

Growing up in Kenya, even as a teenager, I used to pack simple sandwiches whenever I went out to give away to anyone that came up to me to beg for money. It was so deeply ingrained in me that money could be potentially used for things other than basic survival tools (such as drugs, etc), that food was the best option to give.

Extreme poverty is such a complex issue and tackling it from any one angle requires much thought. Do the said-beggars in places like India and Kenya even have a choice to do something other than begging? Or is structural violence so deeply entrenched that a vicious cycle of poverty and lack of access to basic needs such as food, clean water, and education do not facilitate ability to do anything else but beg?

I think of donor agencies who give development assistance to resource-poor countries in various forms – food aid, technical assistance and expertise, hard money, etc. How is that different from a single person giving a few rupees or shillings to a single child? Therefore the ultimate question, does giving serve to encourage a culture of begging and dilapidate a person so much that they feel they do not have a choice but to ask for help? Or does it truly help to meet some basic needs?

Having been here five months – I am still nowhere close to the answers. As I continue to work as global health professional in India and beyond, my ultimate aim is not only to set up new projects, but to ensure sustainability of any work that I do. To train capable people and transfer knowledge to ensure that someone can do the work that I do after I leave. Knowing that I do not have all the answers and do not understand the complexity to local problems in the global context, I choose to give.

Praise you in this storm

This song has provided much comfort to me over the years...

and most recently while I live in India.