Storms inside and outside

The day ended with two energizing "reflections of the day" statements from two participants, Caroline Kisia and David Rogers.

Caroline said: "As a big user of the kinds of information the scientists gathered here provide, for me to hear from you all directly was very, very interesting. There is so much know-how in this room! But we all speak very different languages. The question remains, how do we take such specialized knowledge to health care and community workers? That is, in spite of all the uncertainty of climate data and modeling, what are some of the practical, actionable things we can do?"

David offered a few "heresies":
"(1) Technology is part of the solution, not the whole solution---and we mustn't impose our solutions on other people's problems. Radio is a missed opportunity here.
(2) We don't all share data---and we're not all going to share it soon. Data is power and people don't give up power easily.
(3) The good news is that these diseases are connected, so that when you begin to get better control over one, that gives you leverage over some others.
(4) Silo busting is a state of mind.
(5) We need to look at problems as they are experienced on the ground.
(6) It's all about poverty, really; we should be looking at the environment-poverty-health nexus rather than the climate-human health-animal health nexus.
David ended with a story. A farmer he met in Ethiopia told him: "My child is dying of malaria. But it's tryps [animal trypanosomosis] that's killing her."

"We owe it to that farmer to integrate our knowledge more," said David.

And, in the midst of a storm of rain, the first day of this workshop ended.