Settling in in Lusaka

Good morning from Lusaka!  It’s cool, cloudy, and windy here today, so in other words, a perfect change from 97 with a chance of a cloud.  I will frame this recap of the last two weeks with some background info: other than studying up on AID, getting a typhoid booster, and making a packing list, I did virtually no preparation for this trip.  This has handed me some minor challenges, mainly that my clothing is not especially appropriate for Zambian winter.  Despite not having lived there consistently for four years now, I consider myself a hardy Chicagoan, and a climate chameleon, of sorts.  I should not be freezing cold when it’s about 65 in the office, but alas.  I should have brought some sweaters; shopping is in my future. 

Everyone so far has been super nice, although working within the confines of the Embassy has been an adjustment (mainly the security and figuring out who belongs to the State Department, who belongs to USAID, and who is just visiting on a TDY).  Quote of the week from the Embassy: “They (the Marines) aren’t here to protect you; they’re here for the documents.”  I feel completely spoiled by having access to a commissary with Oreos and Coke Zero.   With this entire internship, I continue to have moments of “this can’t be happening,” but in the best way possible.   I will also not complain that everyone seems to think I’m 25, at most.  Hahahaha. 

So, the AID Health Office, as is the case for Economic Development, HIV/AIDS, and Education, has a portfolio of contracted programs.  One of the activities I’m working on this summer is to revamp the fact sheets – which are distributed to various stakeholders –for each of those programs.  It’s essentially like writing copy, which I’m happy to do.  Next week I’m participating in several site visits around Lusaka related to HIV/AIDS.  A group of people from CDC and PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) are coming to town to work on monitoring and evaluation of some of that portfolio.  I know a lot more about general maternal and child health issues, so I will learn a lot, particularly about treatment. 

It’s been pretty neat so far to have more of a context for many of the concepts I’ve spent all year reading about in Tucson, especially the idea of multi-sectoral collaboration.  It’s most certainly happening within AID – one example is how the Education Team weaves HIV education into the suggested reading curriculum for primary school.  I also heard a few mentions the other day of the first 1,000 days (yay!  I just read several papers about this three weeks ago), and a supervisor passed around a hard copy of UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children (distributed earlier this year in one of my classes).

All in all, I’m having a marvelous summer so far.  Take care, everyone.