We just finished assisting in hosting the first gender conference in Rwanda. It was a pretty big deal and there was a pretty huge international topic. My panel was on maternal health and only two of us showed up. I presented my modeling and simulation analysis of Rwanda’s use of mobile phones to combat maternal mortality, and then a midwife spoke on new technologies they’re beginning to use in city hospitals- it was quite complementary. Cocktails the first night of the conference were hosted at the home of the U.S. Ambassador and I met two young women in the Foreign Service– I’m sold. I’ll start studying for the foreign service exam when I get back!
During the conference, we learned alot about cultural differences- starting with the fact that none of the programs, banners, or name tags got printed until the morning of the conference. It was all very thrown together, but somehow it worked. We also learned alot about the Western concept of time- when the panel time is over, the Rwandan moderators would continue to take questions “just for 5 more minutes” and inevitably cut into the next panel’s time by 30 or 40 minutes. Also, “questions” are really dissertations in their own right. I started to zone out as people droned on and on with their “questions.” I was designated as the photographer for the event and made good use of my camera! 250 photos just on the second day of the event! We survived our cultural differences, and the tough audience questions and criticisms and somehow made it out okay! I did find out for the Permanent Secretary to the Minister of Health that I will not be allowed to do my joint study with them unless I can find a Rwandan university student to do a co-study with me. Our contact at the university here is working on that. Two p.m. on Friday we found out that the UNHCR required a formal letter allowing us in– somehow our host mother pulled that off in just 2 hours before the office closed for the weekend. Tomorrow we leave for the refugee camps.
I heard about the earthquake through bits and pieces of available news during the conference — I hope everything is okay.
Research Assistant Professor