The Horn of Africa

It all started back where it originally began--at CDC in Atlanta. Once again the call of duty required that I leave the acquired comfort of my Southern California home to respond to a greater and more compelling mission. And once again I found myself wondering how it happened, and why me? As in, there were so many others to choose from--how was I so fortunate to get the call? 

I will be forever grateful to A.J. Williams (the microbiologist at CDC who recruited me) for appreciating my type A personality and relentless zeal for figuring out how to get people to do what I need for them to do while having absolutely no authority whatsoever. And the whole interview took place from an abandoned office that I snuck in to after politely excusing myself from an asthma briefing meeting. Well, you know how well I do with interviews from unusual and awkward settings (let's recall the slam dunk interview I gave in 2011 to Catholic Relief Services for an International Development Fellowship position while stuck in the back of a car filled with family on the way to a winery over Thanksgiving). Then after several weeks of waiting, I finally got the email to inform me that I would join the ranks of a talented and diverse team of Stop the Transmission of Polio (STOP) consultants as a Communications Specialist on STOP team 43.

Everything became a whirlwind of airport shenanigans and multiple flights back and forth across the country after that. In January I finally made my way to Atlanta, the home of Coca Cola, the Braves, and CDC, of course. For two and a half weeks I was to be trained by experts from CDC, the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF on all things polio, from acute flaccid paralysis surveillance to stool collection kits (one of which was jokingly "dropped" on me, just 'cause A.J. thought it'd be a funny demonstration). I was in for a crash course. On the first day of training I emerged from my hotel room to find a lobby filled with loudly talking men. Mostly Indian and African men, to be exact. It was the first time in my public health history that I was vastly outnumbered by my opposite sex counterparts. Apparently I was the first of only a small handful of STOP women to arrive to the lobby to catch the shuttle over to CDC. But soon two of my fellow PHPS Fellows, Amina and Ada, came down to join me. 

Week 2 of STOP training at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, GA

Once the training started, I came to discover a few things. First, the large group of men who made up the STOP 43 team were actually quite kind and friendly. Second, the training was like a mini UN with people from all over the world including India, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and the U.S. Third, and most importantly, there is an endless dictionary of polio jargon and acronyms that are tossed around like ping pong balls. I could hardly figure out what one stood for before the next one was thrown out. And one of these infamous terms was "the Horn of Africa." At first I disregarded this foreign phrase, but then I came to hear it so many times that I began to wonder what it meant. Was it like the "boot" of Italy? Well, it turns out I wasn't too far off. If you look at a map of Africa, you can see that the northeastern part of the continent is actually shaped like a rhino horn. So there it is--I'm heading into the horn. 

At first I had been assigned to work at UNICEF in Kenya, but just one week before my scheduled departure, plans changed and I was re-assigned to Uganda. Despite my disappointment at having to wait another two weeks to head to Africa, I'm glad to have a few extra days to add to my travel stockpile, get my affairs in order here in LA, and enjoy the luxuries of hot showers, potable tap water, and my own bed. In the meantime, I am poised and ready to embark on this journey. I'm thankful for the opportunity to serve, and I pray for God's blessings upon us all as we deploy for this great mission.

Paska, one of my colleagues from Uganda, and me