Africa

Jon Sawyer, Pulitzer Center

Bill Freivogel, for the Pulitzer Center
Murchison Falls, Uganda

After spilling a Pepsi on myself on the first leg of the trip, I got lucky and was bumped up to first class for the Amsterdam to Kampala leg - 5,000 miles.  They had champagne ready for me when I sat down, a wonderful lunch and another snack just before landing and even a couple of trinkets to remember them by.

Bill Freivogel, for the Pulitzer Center
Kampala, Uganda

After half a day talking to Ugandan journalists who face death threats and government intimidation I found myself advising them that they should form an independent journalists' organization and to resist the government created licensing board. I did admit that this advice might be easier given than carried out.

Bill Freivogel, for the Pulitzer Center
Addis Ababa, Kenya

LWALA, KENYA- In 2006, NewsChannel 5 reported about a Vanderbilt University medical student who was the first person from his Kenyan village to fly in an airplane.

People back home sold their livestock to pay for his ticket to the United States.

Now they need Milton Ochieng back to save his dying village.

Every student at Vanderbilt Medical School encounters AIDS. But only Ochieng has been orphaned by it.

First his mother, then his father - he learned of their deaths through email.

"I don't think anything really prepared me for it," Ochieng said.

Day 23, Thursday, July 12, 2007

Day 21, July 7, 2007

David Morse, for the Pulitzer Center

This was, for all of us, a big journey. Most blogs written from the saddle like this one just kind of stop. Though I can't provide closure for myself entirely, and expect that may be true for the others - the experience is still running through us - I feel some need to say goodbye or at least "See you later" to those who have followed our journey from afar.

Ethiopia's impoverished Somali region still bears evidence of the 1970s war between Somalia and Ethiopia. From Jijiga — the region's capital and closest major city to the Somali border — to Gode — a badlands town that houses numerous U.N. agencies and NGOs — the region has struggled from the ravages of flood and drought.

Global health advocates are trying desperately to get your attention. They worry that statistics have lost their meaning. Who can wrap their mind around 6,500 Africans dying of AIDS every day, anyway? As the director of a global health advocacy firm in Washington told me the other day, "We need a story."

That's when I told her about Milton Ochieng'.

Day 21, July 7, 2007