My role here, at least on paper, is to live in this rural Ghanaian community, identify groups of people interested in small scale income generation and “agroforestry” practices (combining multipurpose trees with agriculture) and support projects based on these interests. That’s a bloodless description, disregarding the shock of entering an entirely new culture, the emotional highs and lows, the scramble for resources, and the hope that difficult work will bear fruit and produce some lasting benefit. There’s an element of ego as well; or rather, the investment of self-worth in the success or failure of the projects. In these aspects it’s not entirely dissimilar from the emotional life of the laboratory.

So I got malaria a week or so ago. In point of fact I don’t know whether there were any P. Falciparum or P. Vivax crawling around my red blood cells, but at the very least it was a bad fever with most of the telling symptoms. I think a lot of us who are interested in the role of science in development keep abreast of the various scientific and economic happenings in the struggle to control malaria, but those of us in the developed world usually have at best an abstract sense of what malaria is.

Malaria hurts.

I spend a fair amount of my time in Ghana listening to the BBC while doing various things around the house. As a side note, between the BBC and Nature Network, the British have captured a disproportionate share of my limited media access. Anyway, I was washing some clothes (by hand in a bucket, a lot of Peace Corps life revolves around buckets) and listening to “World Update” when I heard that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding some agricultural projects aimed at improving cocoa and cashew production. The press release/article can be found here.

Back in February 2008, at the AAAS annual meeting which jump-started my interest in science in a global context, I attended several sessions that focused on African research institutions attempting to aid in the agricultural development of key crops. In particular, I remember one session that was devoted to work on the genetics of Cassava, with a long term goal of helping the small farmers who were dependent on cassava for both income and food security. Those talks made a big impression on me, and so I was thrilled that our intensive training (my first three months in Ghana) included a visit to the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana in the Eastern Region of the country, roughly three hours from the capital of Accra.

Hey everyone,

Well, back in September my intention was to stop blogging for a while. After joining the Peace Corps and preparing to relocate to West Africa as an Agroforestry/Environment volunteer, I wasn’t sure if there would be sufficient internet access or relevent material to sustain my blog. However, although blogging from rural Ghana can’t be the same as blogging from a nice, comfortable chair with a piping hot cup of coffee (can you tell what little luxuries I’m missing?), after being in the country for five months it’s surprised me how often something would come up and I’d want to share it with a community of science-minded people. That’s a more polished way of saying I would learn something science related and think “That’s so COOL!” But, one of the consequences of being a Peace Corps volunteer in a very rural site (I live in the far west of the primarily agricultural Brong-Ahofa region, near the border with Cote d’Ivoire) is that my opportunities to talk about those cool things are limited.

Nature Network, are you willing to indulge me?

Well, I’ve enjoyed this foray into science blogging. It’s been a learning experience, and something that I hope to return to in the future. In a couple weeks I’m leaving to work in rural West Africa with the Peace Corps and, given the likelihood of extremely scarce internet access, I’m going to set this blog aside for a while and focus on correspondence with friends and family. Good luck in all your endeavors.

-Sam

This is a little cheesy, but I’m in the process of wrapping up an extended stay on the West Coast and in the absence of a real blog entry I thought I’d highlight some other online sources that have come across my radar recently.

For those of us interested in the relationship between science, development, poverty, and that whole cluster of global issues, try SciDev.Net, it’s an impressive resource for news about science-related issues in the developing world.

Following a link from Andrew Revkin’s New York Times Dot Earth blog (which in itself is a wonderful resource), I’ve been reading Michael Glantz Fragile Ecologies site which synthesizes his research on how climate change and agriculture (primarily biofuels) issues affect people at the local level in the developing world. His articles are impressively clear and deserving of wider attention. Unfortunately, Revkin recently posted that Glantz’s research group has lost most of their funding and has been dramatically scaled back.

Okay, this is a bump for my most recent post. Apparently if you start a post, save it, and then return to finish it later the Nature Network takes account of when you began it rather than when you posted it and that pretty much makes it invisible as far as popping up on the various NN places where recent blog posts are displayed.

So, how about that ideal science job, eh?

As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, my next steps are taking me to West Africa to work on food security and environmental degradation with the Peace Corps. But the need for innovative science-minded people in non-traditional roles is an ongoing one, so how about we do a little brainstorming on the subject? I was kicking an idea around with a friend of mine the other day, about a sort of “fantasy job” that I’d like to have after returning to the States. She challenged me to flesh it out further, and I thought it might be interesting to do that here. Now, if the spirit moves anyone, how about posting your own version in the comments? So what’s my Design-A-Job? I would be Outreach Director for the Biotechnology Association of Maine.

Details below the jump.

I think one of the things I enjoy most about blogging is how it focuses your attention on various topics within the sea of information out there on the Internet. For example, after my fumbling attempts to connect some thoughts on an environmental health research article with the need for clean coal technologies, I find myself reading a truly excellent Nature News article by Jeff Tollefson on just that topic. It’s a great introduction to a complicated field, and is helping a lot to deepen my understanding.