57th Stop: Minneapolis, Minnesota (Part 2)

‘Twas the night before Christmas Eve and Casey was hosting a massive reunion for my alma mater, Apple Valley High School. Only the brave ventured out it yet another winter blizzard. Nonetheless, it was a great turnout and I got a chance to catch up with some friends I haven’t seen since high school. One of them, Eric, just graduated from an elite Air Force fighter pilot school and is now one of the best pilots in the country. Another, Mark, got a lucky break on the el-train in Singapore and broke into the modeling and eventually the Asian TV and film industry. Liz is now a network news broadcaster. It was nice talking with Erin who recently returned from South Africa where she built a library in a rural community and hearing about Emily and Lindsey's children. Kudos to them and to everyone else, especially the young mothers!

A high school reunion party isn’t a reunion party without a little drama. Without naming any names, there are two stories to tell. But I don’t want to get in trouble, so if you really want to know, I’ll have to tell you in strict confidentiality, face-to-face :-) Thanks to Casey for hosting me and helping buy a bednet to protect a family from malaria!

On Christmas Eve, my mom and Danny had the whole family over, plus the Frenchies for an Italian seafood feast. The dish, called cioppino, originated in the San Francisco Bay area among Italian fisherman. Thanks Danny, it was delicious! Christmas day ensued, with too many presents for Louis (please don’t spoil him Santa!) and a wonderful brunch at Maria and Dave’s place.

God bless every American home

Capitol Building in Saint Paul

Hey, won't you give me S'mores!

Somewhere in between, Thomas taught us all how to play bambu, a fun card game that is actually several games in one. See the rules here if you’re looking for a great way to while away the time by a fireplace with s’mores and hot beverages.

Mickey's Diner

We still had a couple days more to visit Saint Paul and run some last minute errands before Thomas, Christelle and the kids went back to France. On Sunday, we went to Saint Paul to see the Capitol building, the cathedral, and eat in a traditional downtown restaurant, Mickey’s Diner. Christelle and Thomas also insisted on going bag to the mall for a teeth whitening session. Smile!

Before

After

Before

After

This ends the adventure with the Frenchies. On behalf of my family and me, I want to thank you again for bringing Louis with you and sharing in our family’s Christmas celebration. We all truly appreciated your presence and you are more than welcome back to Minnesota when it is warmer, with or without me!

To be continued...

41st Stop - Denver, Colorado, USA

Wordfast Sno Cones

Where am I? What time is it? It’s not easy traveling through 16 time zones in less than a week and crossing an international dateline somewhere in between... The hardest part was the 4-hour delay in Seattle. It turned a 36-hour trip into 40 hours! First things first, find the hotel and go to bed.

I have to thank Wordfast tech support guru David, my roommate from the Czech Republic, for inspiring me to get out of bed and go to the hotel gym in the morning. Nothing like a workout, swim, and rooftop hot tub in the chilly Denver morning air to kickstart your day.

David catching up on the latest news

Thursday and Friday I helped man the Wordfast booth at the ATA Conference trade show. Wordfast definitely has the coolest giveaways at these things: winter hats and icy blue sno-cones! We met up with Jamie, another Wordfast trainer, his wife and others from her company, German Language Services, for dinner that evening at the Wynkoop, a great brewery/eatery for unique beers the next time you’re in Denver.

Interestingly, Virginia from Spain was in Denver for a company meeting at the same time so she popped in and joined us for a couple drinks! Great to see you again Virginia!

Friday night, Wordfast hosted a party at the Rock Bottom Brewery for conference attendees. It doesn’t take much more than free drinks and food to convince more than 100 people to show up. During the evening, we collected donations for bednets and managed to raise $125. Thanks to everyone who helped buy bednets and thanks to Wordfast for matching that amount. That’s 25 bednets and more than 25 families protected from malaria over the next 5 years.

Wordfast is always full of surprises

The trade show ended on Saturday afternoon, but I left too hastily because I forgot my computer charger! I went back to get it but someone had given it to the electrician. This person didn’t have it and no one was much help so I had to go out and buy a new charger. The drawback of having a Mac is that not many stores carry products for it. I had to go out to a suburban shopping mall to the Mac store, pick up an $85 charger and get back to town before the buses stopped :-(

Two smart cookies

I got back late but met up with two Fulbright scholars from Russia and the Ukraine, Ekaterina and Victoria, for dinner. Nice meeting both of you and good luck with your studies!

Explaining the in's and out's of Wordfast 

Sno Kones as snowballs melt in your hands, not in your mouth

Jamie and John cracking Wordfast

You too can be a part of the Wordfast gang

Wordfast party time!

I want to thank Wordfast and Kristyna for inviting me to attend this conference, for helping to raise funds during the party, and for the good times! I also want to thank David, my roommate for buying 5 nets and for the morning workout motivation! Thanks to all of you and see you soon I hope!

Next stop: Osaka, Japan!

Malaria in Cameroon... Michel's story.

I received an e-mail from Michel, one of my hosts in Cameroon, not too long ago and it stirred up a lot of emotions. I asked him if I could share it with you and he said sure. Thanks Michel. My apologies in advance to my English readers. Please use Google Translate.

Alors comme ce soir Poseidon nous a rendu la connexion, le mieux est de t'envoyer mon adresse par la haute technologie dans ce monde ou même là devant mon ordi mes pieds sont léchés par les fourmis...

Ici çà va bien, le temps n'est plus aussi agréable que lorsque tu es passé, il pleut bien plus, ahhhh ma Bretagne à Kribi ! Non je plaisante tu sais bien... qu'il ne pleut pas en Bretagne.

Dimanche dernier, vers midi, ai eu de forts maux de tête, et des sensations d'engourdissement aux membres, ai consulté lundi matin, c'était bien le palud, (rien à voir avec mes lécheuses de pied, là ce sont les as de pique !). Je t'assure que la nuit a été horrible, je crois même qu'elle a duré plusieurs jours, si si, heureusement que ma petite femme est là pour s'occuper de moi, elle n'a pas dormi non plus, elle s'est occupé de moi et a prié...

Alors les médicaments, ma femme, et Dieu, ils se sont tous mis ensemble et on vaincu le malin, si toutefois c'était lui, mais c'est sur je suis guéri... le moins marrant dans l'histoire, c'est que je n'ai jamais vu autant de moustique que ce soir dans mon salon, après ce message je lance une attaque foudroyante (c'est ce qu'ils ont écrit sur la bombe) mais rassures-toi, rien à voir avec Hiroshima, si ce n'est la toxicité, mais je n'en abuserai pas...

Bref John, pour être plus sérieux, et pour info, dimanche midi, premiers symptômes ; lundi midi, diagnostic ; mercredi midi, ça va, vendredi, guérison totale.  Comme quoi, quand on s'y prend à temps, ça se passe bien, je te dis cela car j'entend plusieurs qui me disent devoir prendre des perfusions, mais en les questionnant plus, j'arrive à savoir qu'en fait ils commencent les premiers jours par prendre quelques dolipranes ou autres, avant d'aller consulter, alors qu'à l'intérieur la maladie avance, voilà le truc...

Thankfully, Michel caught it in time and got immediate treatment. Unfortunately, most of the people who die from malaria are children under 5 years old and some of them can’t even tell you how terrible they’re feeling because they can’t talk yet.

Thanks again for sharing your story Michel and wishing you well from around the world.

20th Stop - Douala, Cameroon, part 2

Malaria prevention

Nothing too exciting these past few days. I finally got a cash infusion from Western Union, my debit cards having arrived in Casablanca a couple days after my departure. Next stop, the pharmacy.

First off, thanks Valérie for the info about what anti-malarial medication to get. She recommended either lariam or malarone. I had the box of lariam in my hand and looked at the price tag: $100! No wonder why this is not a long-term solution to malaria prevention in Sub-Saharan Africa (in addition to the potential side effects of taking it for too long). For 56 days of protection, that’s $1.78 per day. That may not sound like much for some readers, but for people surviving on less than $1 a day, this price makes it unaffordable for those who need it most.

Bednet for Annie and Ghislain's three boys.

Now, lets compare this with a bednet. One bednet can protect 1 to 4 people (depending on how many people are sleeping under it) for up to 5 years. Five years is 1,825 days. If a bednet costs $10 to produce, ship, distribute, and teach people how to use it, that makes $0.005 per day. Lets say there are 3 children sleeping under it, that means it will cost less than $0.002 per day to protect them from contracting a malaria for up to 5 years.

This illustrates why there is so much effort and energy being devoted to the bednets campaign. It is one of the most simple, cost-effective solution for saving lives. Remember that every 30 seconds a child dies of malaria and that children under 5 are most at risk. This also costs Sub-Saharan Africa $12 billion in lost economic productivity and represents about 40% of the continent's health expenditures.

If you want to protect someone’s life over the next five years, you can buy a bednet or two today by clicking here. It will end up costing you less than $0.005 per day. A special thanks to Magali G. for pushing us over the bar of $3000 raised for 300 bednets!

Thanks again to everyone for your support. There are more adventures to come--tonight we celebrate Ghislain’s birthday!

Goal Setting

I had the opportunity a few weeks back to teach a course on time management to JCI members during a training weekend organized by JCI Marseille. One of the most important questions that comes up during this course is “What to do with your time?” To this question, there are three answers:

1. Define your goals.
2. Write down the actions you need to take to achieve them.
3. Free up time to accomplish said actions.

First things first, we have to define our goals. Your goal has to be SMART or Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

I’m going to use my Around the Worldfast project as an example: my goal is to raise $20,000 to purchase 2,000 malaria-preventing bednets by March 2011. This goal is specific, measurable, and time-bound. It is also relevant as it is in line with my values. But is it attainable?

I’ve realized over time that it is important to set ambitious goals. When you take aim at something, you rarely fall far from your mark. For example, I recently sent out a newsletter to more than 2,500 people, 750 of whom opened it. I set a goal to raise $200 with this newsletter by encouraging readers to purchase bednets. The result: 15.5 bednets. Here is a case in point: sometimes we don’t always reach our goals but if we’ve defined them and taken steps to achieve them, we’ll be closer to accomplishing them in the end!

I want to thank Elizabeth, Nicholas, Corinne and Agnès for helping save lives and getting us closer to achieving the UN Millenium Development Goal to have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.

More to come about my stay in Paris in the next post...