Now that we’ve had a few days of downtime I was able to get photos organized from graduation.  Looking at them now, I think we got the best family photos we’ve ever taken.  There are some really great ones of my parents with Michael-John and Maggie.  Here are the links and a few highlights.

• Video of me walking stage with the boys. 
• Photos of graduation, our last month in Medford and the move. 

Graduation weekend kicked off last night with a classic New England clam bake.  We got all dressed up and civilized then made a royal mess as we ripped apart whole Maine lobster, tried to keep sleeves from dragging in melted butter and made liberal use of the provided lobster bibs.  While the all you can eat lobster was certainly a highlight of the evening, I loved the lobster for another reason.  Actually eating a whole lobster is quite a process and not particularly easy for the uninitiated.  The ridiculous and messy challenge of cracking into the lobster set a great tone for the evening.  There was just something about walking around and seeing everyone with this little friendly looking lobster on their plate and then watching your classmates and their parents try and somehow eat the thing.  Plus my lobster was delicious.  Both of them. 

I’m not quite organized enough to have my photos up yet, but fortunately Michele is.  Click here to link to her photos.  Today is our class day.  We have a guest speaker and a luncheon followed by a barbecue with friends this evening.  It should be a great day, though it looks to be in the 60’s and rainy all day so it may be a bit of a mudpit under the tent where our graduation is.   

[A few years ago I wrote a post about a very different Lobster Day in Honduras - you can read the post here.]

I like thinking about that conversation because it is a touchstone for a series of reflections I have been having as we prepare to move to Honduras in July.  What does it mean to be a “development professional”?  This reflection encompasses both the huge, daunting, intimidating question of “How do we end poverty?” and the equally daunting “How do we live as people while working toward that goal?” 

In February at our final interview for the CRS job I sort of leaned over toward my friend Marc and whispered, “I don’t know, these jobs sound kind of hard.”  It got a chuckle, but the weight of that statement hung in the room for me.  These are difficult questions for serious people, there isn’t a “right” answer and we’re not playing with monopoly money anymore.  Realities like the Burma cyclone, the recent rebel attacks on Khartoum, or rising food prices around the world drive home the fact that at the heart of development programs are people who are suffering. 

So my hope is to sort of kick off a series of occassional posts that seeks to reflect on some of these questions.  The posts will likely span the summer and focus on both the personal and professional questions.  I hope to reflect on how I hope to live as an individual (and we as a family) in the developing world.  Is this move the same as the last time we moved to Honduras?  How is it the same?  Different?  Motivations?  Methods?  Vision?  Definitions of success?  Scale?  Lifestyle?  Sustainability?  Work-life balance?  Erika and I have been having some great conversations lately about these very questions and I’m hoping to try and synthesize some of the thinking.  I will also tackle some more technical questions about the business of “ending poverty.”  Reflections on some of the things I’ve learned in grad school and what it means to me to be a “development professional.”

Sunds interesting?  Stay tuned.  Sound boring?  Worry not it’s only an occasional series and I’ll try and intersperse it with more interesting fare!

[To see all of the posts in this series in one place click on the Summer 2008 Reflections category.]

“Normal” Map

 Here is the same map that takes each country and sizes it for population size intead of land mass size.

And now a map with countries represented according to child mortality rates.

These maps come from a project at the University of Michigan.  More maps with AIDS rates, GDP, health care spending etc. can be found at their website or the Worldmapper Project. 

There are lots of photos in this gallery and here is a video of the mock BBC newscast that was really fun and “aired” on Saturday night.  You can read more about the simulation in this Boston Globe article.   

Check out her blog where she writes about her upcoming transplant with a partial match and watch the video below. 

So while I will be heading to Honduras, Marc is off to Bosnia in Eastern Europe and Michelle will be posted to West Bank/Gaza in the Middle East.  Marc and his wife Chrissy were Peace Corps volunteers in Moldova and were hoping to move back to Eastern Europe.  Michelle’s background is in gender and conflict (she spent last summer in Darfur, Sudan) and she has some Arabic skills so West Bank/Gaza is a great placement for her.  We were all pretty excited about our postings because CRS matched us pretty well with where/what we will be doing.   

The best part for me is that Marc and Michelle are two of the people that I work with and hang out with the most at Fletcher.  As we went through the interview process it was great to be interviewing with people who I would hire or, more importantly, I would want to work for.  Marc and Michelle are two of the most talented people I know and it will be great to have them working in the same agency. 

That excitement doesn’t just extend to those working with CRS.  Jobs are starting to trickle in for my classmates as we realize that we are in fact employable.  Sarah’s going to work for USAID, Rashad and Chris are working for the State Department, Hai is going to be a consultant with Booz, Allen, Hamilton, Saba is going to work for the Federal Reserve in NYC.  It’s a fun time of year as jobs start to materialize for second years and internships firm up for first years.  It’s a good reminder that while school is important, it’s ultimately a preparation for the work we will be doing after school and that the connections we have made with each other here will continue long after we have left Fletcher.

It is with great joy that Erika and I announce that we will be moving back to Honduras this August. I have accepted a position with Catholic Relief Services as an International Development Fellow.

The fellowship is a 1-year posting that will provide me with a variety of experiences that will serve as a foundation for my career with CRS. While my work will mostly focus on water and sanitation, anti-human trafficking and anti-child labor projects I will also have the opportunity to bounce around the rest of the country office to get experience in strategic planning, finance and administration. I’ll be in this position for a year and then likely move to a program manager position for a 2-5 year posting likely in another country and possibly in another region.

While we will be returning to Honduras it will be very different from our last stint in Honduras at the Farm of the Child. Rather than living 30 minutes outside of the small town of Trujillo, we will be living in Tegucigalpa (the capital) a city of 1 million people about 9 hours by bus from Trujillo. We will still be close enough to visit the Farm occasionally while being almost a world away. Tegucigalpa also has the added bonus of being just a 2-hour flight from Miami.

We have a busy few months ahead of us as we prepare to head back south. I graduate in May and then we’ll be in South Bend May 23-June 27 and in Florida June 27-July 20 before heading to Baltimore for training. We hope to see many of you in that time.

Love,

Michael-John, Erika, Michael, Jacob, and Maggie