Typical Day
"No, no, no," Earnest Peoplehugger moans as the screen on his ancient laptop goes black and his worst nightmare comes true. "Not here. Not now!"
It's 7:00AM in Tanzania. Earnest has been up for an hour, uploading the most recent patient data. Thankfully, he saved his work just before his computer was struck by the Blue Screen of Death.
Several of his colleagues gather around the breakfast table to sympathize with his plight and offer suggestions, but Earnest ultimately decides to just turn the dumb thing off for the time being, eat his breakfast, drink his coffee, and prep for the morning meeting.
Earnest is the Health and Nutrition Program Associate for Sustain This! Tanzania, a small non-profit organization that works to educate the local population about sustainable farming, nutrition, and health practices. He's spent the last three months in Africa, and the three months before that at Sustain This! headquarters in Baltimore, prepping for his assignment to Tanzania.
The Sustain This! site is partnered with a small medical clinic run by a non-profit organization that places doctors, nurses, and other health workers all over Africa. The idea is that the clinic dispenses medical care to the locals, while Sustain This! provides information and education.
The morning meeting at 7:15AM is brief, and includes the four Sustain This! employees and the six health care professionals affiliated with the medical clinic. Dr. Hackinsaw, who oversees the entire operation, gives a quick run-down of the schedule for the day.
The clinic will be open from 7:30AM to 5:30PM; Earnest's biweekly nutrition class for mothers and children will run from 5:30PM to 6:30PM; the two Sustainable Farming Associates from Sustain This!, Pax, and Amore, will lead a class for local farmers all day.
Dr. Hackinsaw dismisses everyone to their posts. Earnest books it to the front of the compound with Pax and Amore to greet a group of six local farmers, all of them new to the course run by Sustain This!
Earnest spends the morning listening to the Sustainable Farming Associates go over what sustainable farming is, how it works, and how it can benefit the farmers. He chimes in with a brief lecture on the nutritional and health benefits of sustainable farming, as well as a short talk on the mission of Sustain This! The farmers, who've clearly talked over the Sustain This! initiative with others in the community who've already started working with Earnest and his friends, pepper the three Americans with questions.
There's a brief break for lunch. Earnest, Pax, and Amore sit with the farmers beneath the shade of a tree and chat. Once lunch is over, Earnest heads back into the compound to try to work some magic on his computer while the Sustainable Farming Associates take the farmers out into the community field behind the compound to do some hands-on learning.
Several years ago, Earnest would never have imagined that he'd end up as an international aid worker. He earned his bachelor's degree in nutrition from a large state university and went on to work for a time at a nearby hospital. But then, Earnest grew bored.
He packed up and spent a year living on a sustainable farm in Georgia. Earnest didn't make any money, but room and board were free and, man, was the food delicious. From there, Earnest went on to earn his master's degree in public health, and then spent a couple of years as a program director for a community food program in Baltimore.
Earnest felt like he'd seen a lot by the age of thirty…but he'd never been outside the United States. He felt as if he could do more—help more people—if he signed up to work overseas. After searching for a job for several months, Earnest finally found work with Sustain This! Sure, the pay is minimal, but Earnest isn't in international aid work for the money. He wants to make a difference.
After several minutes spent muttering imprecations at his laptop, Earnest gets the computer back online. Huzzah! He spends the afternoon entering the rest of the patient data into the database.
One of his primary tasks as a Health and Nutrition Program Associate is to track the numbers showing that the Sustain This! initiative is working. Thanks to the partnership with the medical clinic, Earnest has access to the health data of several hundred patients who've given him permission to track their health outcomes in tandem with the nutrition education he provides.
While it's still too early for the numbers to show much, Earnest has seen firsthand how the nutritional plans and advice he dispenses to mothers and their children are beginning to positively affect local health. He keeps a journal with this more descriptive information.
About an hour before his class is scheduled to begin, Earnest starts gathering his notes and lesson plans. He also has a page of information answering questions he received during the last class.
At 5:30PM, Earnest enters the classroom attached to the compound. There are more than thirty women crowded into the room, several of whom are with infants. While the older children play outside under the supervision of a couple of teenagers, Earnest helps the women understand what they and their children should be eating.
He helps them understand how often they should eat, how nutrition affects health, and how the new farming techniques that Sustain This! can teach to the community will benefit everyone. He fields several questions from women who haven't attended the class before.
Before Earnest knows it, it's 6:45PM and his stomach is growling. Still, he stays put until 7:00PM, answering a few more questions and chatting with some of the women he's become acquainted with during his three months in Tanzania.
It's been a long day. After the class, Earnest goes to the compound dining room and joins his colleagues for the evening meal. They go over the events of the day, some of them hilarious, some of them somber. Three months ago, he didn't know any of these people. Now, he's closer to them than he is to many of his friends from college.
By 9:00PM, Earnest is perched on his cot, answering emails from friends and family back home. He reads a little before falling asleep at 10:30PM, secure in the knowledge that he did some good today.