Oppy Submission - August 25th

Joseph Quaderer is a student in the Langone program. On September 14th he’s going on a 6 month sabbatical to Kampala, Uganda to work for Educate! a non-profit organization that teaches native Ugandans and refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Sudan the necessary skills to start and scale social enterprises - financially sustainable organizations that also address important social problems. While abroad he’ll be writing a bi-weekly column for the Oppy.

“I don’t know,” Shaniqua said, “I cant really explain it. I like making dead people look good. It makes it easier for the families left behind. It gives them closure.”
Shaniqua, the bubbly receptionist, was telling me about her work as a funeral director - the person charged with prepping the deceased before their open casket viewing. It was her life’s passion. She had accepted a position as a receptionist only because the funeral home she was working at didn’t pay her enough to support her child.
I nodded uneasily, but interested that someone could have a passion for such a morbid profession.
“Doesn’t it get hard?” I asked. “You know, to work with dead people all day?”
She laughed. “Honey, I used to work as a receptionist at a Wall Street firm. Now THAT was tough. Dead people aren’t nasty. The people that work at that firm are.”
I laughed, and sympathized.
“What are you doing in Africa anyways?”
I explained that I was going to work for an organization that teaches young adults how to become social entrepreneurs to pull themselves out of poverty.
“That’s nice.” She smiled, “What do you do for a living?”
“I work for Morgan Stanley.”
“Really?!” She screeched. “Are you pulling my leg?”
“No.” I said, confused. “Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Because you’re so NICE!” She laughed. “No one in business is nice.”
“We’re not all monsters.”
“No, just most of you.”
I smiled. It used to be a source of pride when I told people that I worked in Finance. Now, after the market meltdown and public anger towards Wall Street, I felt like I had a big scarlet F scrawled across my chest when I admitted my profession.

I was sitting in the Cornell Weill International Medical Center to get vaccinations and prophylactics to prevent a plethora of scary-sounding diseases, some of which I thought had been eradicated a long time ago: yellow fever, polio, hepatitis A, typhoid, tetanus, meningitis, malaria…etcetera.

Shaniqua called my name and walked me down to a room at the end of the hallway. She handed me a piece of paper with her name and number on it. “Add this to your email list. I want to hear all about your trip.”
I smiled and promised her I would. I sat down on a chair in the corner of the room.

The technician walked into the room. He was a nice Filipino man who had immigrated to the United States over twenty years ago. He looked at the chart Shaniqua had left behind.
He looked at me, “You sure you want to get all six shots today?”
“Why not?”
“Well – there are really two reasons.” He said, “First of all nobody likes getting stuck with six different needles in one day. Secondly, people usually get sick after getting vaccination. If you get sick we wont know which virus is affecting you.”
Lovely. Cast between taking another day off from work and risking infection from one of six nefarious viruses, I chose the latter, a decision I’d regret a few days later when I felt like I came down with the flu’s meaner cousin.
“What about malaria pills?” He asked me.
“What are my options?”
“The most common and cheapest is Chloroquine” he said. He pulled out a map of Africa with different swaths of orange running horizontally across the continent. He pointed at Uganda. “But malaria is resistant to that drug where you’re going.”
He put the map away. “Another option, which you only have to take once a week and is pretty cheap, is Mefloquine.” He looked at me and tilted his head. “But that has side effects such as psychosis, seizures and schizophrenia among other major psychiatric disorders.”
I shook my head. No thanks. I’m barely sane as it is, I don’t need any further nudging down that dark path.
“What else you got?”
We eventually settled on Malarone, a once-a-day prophylactic, which is expensive but has no bizarre side effects or efficacy gaps.
“Okay. You’re all set.” The technician said to me. “You’ll probably feel like you have the flu for a few days. If it gets really bad come back and we can do some tests, but most likely you’ll just need some Tylenol.”

I left the travel clinic and walked down the street amongst the people bustling and running and hailing cabs frantically as they made their way to work. It will be weird to leave this world, I thought to myself. I got a cup of coffee and sat on a bench a few blocks away. I crossed “vaccinations” off my “to-do” list. A list which included seventy-one items I had to accomplish before I departed for Africa, everything from paying my NYU matriculation fee (sigh) to shutting my cell phone service off to haggling with insurance representatives to understand my benefits in the event something unfortunate occurred abroad.

As I glanced over the spreadsheet, I thought of what my mother said after viewing my color-coded, incredibly nerdish spreadsheet: “You’re nuts.”
Maybe she was right? In the midst of the worst economy since the great depression I was going to walk away from a stable job at Morgan Stanley, a luxury apartment, a network of family and friends, a half-complete MBA degree and all the comforts of the developed world to volunteer in Africa for people I’d never met.
It seemed completely backwards to give up a life to help others, and yet it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve made. There aren’t many opportunities in life to leverage your skills and use them to make a palpable difference in the lives of others. But for me this journey was not completely selfless. Quite the contrary - I was also going to gain perspective on life, to experience another culture and to learn who I am. I want to experience raw humanity, removed from the prefabrications of contemporary life. And while my main purpose is to share my knowledge of finance and entrepreneurship, for some reason, I know I will be doing much more learning than teaching.

My phone rang. It was my best friend.
“You get all your vaccinations?”
“Yup.”
“How do you feel?”
“Excited. Everything is getting more real.”
“You scared?”
“Yes” I admitted, “I don’t know what to expect. This is the great unknown for a guy living in Manhattan.”

And I am scared. My good friend, Shiloh Harrison, who graduated from the Wagner Program in May and has been to seven African countries gave me one piece of advice: don’t read the State Department’s report that details the safety and security, crime, traffic safety and road conditions among other ominous topics. Being the hard-headed hack I am, I ignored the advice. I wish I had listened to her: “US citizens residing in or planning to visit Uganda should be aware of threats to their safety posed by insurgent groups operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan, and the potential for cross-border attacks carried out by these armed groups” ; “US citizens traveling in the area commonly known as Karamoja in northeastern Uganda should also be aware of ongoing conflict and armed banditry in this region” ; “American citizens should exercise caution when traveling in those districts of northwestern Uganda that border the DRC and southern Sudan and which could potentially be subject to LRA incursions” ; “Local officials in northern Uganda have expressed concern for the safety and security of foreigners visiting the area to assist with relief efforts, but without any specific arrangements with a sponsoring organization” ; “American citizens are advised to restrict travel to primary roads and during daylight hours only.”

And while these reports are disturbing, allowing them to dissuade me would be like not visiting Manhattan because someone got stabbed at a nightclub in Bayonne, New Jersey. Kampala is said to be as nuanced as Manhattan and while you must be aware and exercise caution there is a wealth of beautiful and bountiful people, culture and lifestyle beneath the hard crust that deters so many.
There is no doubt that Uganda has its own problems. That being said the “Pearl of Africa,” as it was nicknamed by Sir Winston Churchill, is a relative bastion of security in an otherwise unstable region. Its surrounded by some scary countries: The Democratic Republic of Congo - where rape, disfigurement and kidnapping are still routinely practiced by Joseph Kony and the Lords Resistance Army; Sudan – where clashes between the Islamic north and the indigenous Christian Dinka tribes of the south have created a religious and civil war that has lasted decades and resulted in hundreds of thousands dead; Rwanda - where between 8,000,000 and 1,000,000 Tutsi’s and moderate Hutu’s were slaughtered by extremist Hutu’s in April 1994; Kenya - once the apotheosis of a civilized African country that has fallen into disarray after a botched election, breakout of tribal warfare and infiltration along the Somalia border of Al Shabab, the African contingent of Al Qaeda.
While I’ve never been to Africa I’ve seen enough and read enough to know Africa has experienced challenges and difficulties most Westerners (including myself) cannot begin to fathom. And yet, the continent is filled with an extremely resilient, talented and culturally diverse cross-section of people who have made significant contributions to all aspects of society – whether through literature, culinary arts, music or any number of other benefactions – the African culture echoes profoundly through civilizations throughout the world. They have left an indelible imprint on the fabric of this planet and now, in the year 2009 we have a President who is a scion of Kenya (and Kansas!).

There is a dichotomy here. Africans are a profoundly talented group of people that has struggled to keep up with the challenges of a rapidly developing world. The organization I will be working for is called Educate. They seek to rectify this schism between actual and realized potential by teaching a two-year curriculum on how to lead social change, provide long term mentoring and create an alumni network geared at equipping students with the skills and confidence necessary to start and scale social enterprises, financially sustainable initiatives that address community problems. The people I have met in the organization, from all walks of life and all corners of the globe, are some of the most intelligent, passionate and committed individuals I’ve ever come across. I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of the team.
The Cornell Weill International Medical Center is located on 70th and York. I live on 34th and 1st avenue. After finishing my coffee I walked home reflecting on all I was about to experience. I walked past the United Nations on 42nd and 1st with the one hundred and ninety two flags flapping in the warm June air. As I looked at them I pondered that which ties humans together, that which separates us and that which defines our idiosyncratic cultures and ideologies. I know a large piece of that puzzle will be unlocked in the next couple of months when I experience life literally and figuratively on the other side of the planet.
I hope that you are all able to come along on my journey, and I don’t only mean my journey to Uganda - I mean my journey to higher plateau of understanding. Perhaps it will also shed light on the fact that, contrary to popular belief, capitalism is one of the most powerful tools for positive social change. The practical experience we’ve had in the business world in tandem with the knowledge we’ve garnered at NYU has equipped us with the tools to make a difference. The non-profit world is vastly different than the corporate America many of us are accustomed to, but there are many parallels. These altruistic organizations are always in need of smart, educated MBA students looking to dedicate a few months to making the world a better place.

I hope you enjoy my column.