Peru

As always, life has been extremely generous since I've last written. Visits to NYC, Ann Arbor, Chicago, San Fran and LA have allowed me to catch up with many of you in person, which has been great. A ridiculously mild winter in Boston also allowed for much personal exploration over the past few months. Externally, from comedy shows and food tours to spending time over coffees and dinners with new Cambridge friends as well as those who just graduated, it continues to be amazing how time flies, but it has been such a fantastic experience for me to have formed such deep relationships with people I've met only 9 months ago. Internally, through a powerful 4-day Art of Living course which has allowed me to expand in my practice of self-awareness and meditation, first catalyzed by free Monday night Qigong sessions at MIT, and the wonderful 10-minute-meditation-for-10-days iphone/android app, Headspace. I can discuss each of these experiences at great length (ask me more in person, or when you reply to this), but in sum its provided me with a wonderful start to dive levels deeper into getting to know myself - from understanding the complex factors that go into my daily decision making, to the bullshit that i feed myself (we all do, to some extent) on a regular basis. It can be a scary journey at times, but has also been a particularly rewarding one. To be fair, the fear dissipates rapidly knowing that I have someone like you to call a friend, and count on to provide me with your honest perspective on any given seemingly random topic. One of the realizations that I've had is that being aware and honest about my limitations has really been quite liberating - acceptance makes it much easier to ask for help, or take measures to improve in that area, rather than expend energy trying to convince myself that it isn't a big deal, 'not my fault' things don't go so well, or mainly that there are some things I should work on. I could go on for awhile, but this stuff is better explored more personally - I wonder if you've had any similar/comparable experiences of late? Care to share? :)

Sandboarding down those dunes!

On to the lighter travelogue which you may have gotten accustomed to, I finally got a chance to visit a continent which had eluded me thus far - South America. Spending 2 weeks (an extended spring break) backpacking across Peru on my own allowed for several adventures, as well as meeting some fascinating people. Starting the weekend off in Lima was great - a capital city with good restaurants, and access to beaches (and beach clubs) which I fully took advantage of. On Monday morning, the real adventure begun. Armed with my Machu Pichu train ticket for Friday and barely rough idea on how to get from one side of the country to the other by land, I hit up the bus terminal to catch the first available 4-hour drive to Ica, a town South-East of Lima and home to famed Huacachina, an oasis in the middle of the desert. Fate put me next to a Canadian 25-year old couple (Cou and Drew) on this pleasant 4 hr commute, who turned out to be pretty chill (we ended up sharing a hostel room in Huacachina) and were taking the year of 2012 off from life to travel around the world. Once at Huacachina, we wasted no time in negotiating a hostel room right on the lake, and proceeded for a few hours of sand buggying (roller coaster-ish ride up and down the sand dunes in a buggy) and sand boarding (sliding down sand dunes face first on a snowboard) down increasingly steep slopes. Standing atop one of these dunes allowed us to marvel at our surroundings - even one ingredient (sand) varied the landscape constantly, - fortunately we were provided goggles for the ride so the constantly readjusting sand particles didn't insert themselves into our eyes. After that adventure, we cooled down with a nearby 'winery tour' (15 min tour, 45 min grape stomping + shaman ceremony to be grateful for the harvest and pray for next season, 2 hr all-you-can-drink wine and Pisco). Of course, the afterparty for this winery tour happened to be at our hostel, which is where I met my companions for the next leg of my journey, 3 Argentinian girls who were also on the 17-hour cross-country bus ride to Cusco the following day. 

Ollantaytambo, the Sacred Valley

Expecting an adventure, Peru didn't disappoint. 12 hours into this journey, our bus halted, seemingly inexplicably. 2 hours later, at 7am, I got out to investigate. A 10 minute walk past 20 other tour buses showed me why - a waist-high landslide ~300m long and spanning the width of the road ruled out any chances of any of our buses making it across anytime soon, not to mention there being absolutely no sign of progress of the landslide being cleared. I thought quickly - if we waited to act, it could easily be days before we made it to Cusco. Instead, we followed the lead of some intelligent farmers who were utilizing the flexibility of minibus drivers. Like them (along with my 3 new friends, 4 other youngsters decided on the same course of action as us: a Colombian couple, a Portugese volunteer teacher and a native Peruvian), we gathered our luggage and carried it across the mud-and-rocky stretch, where we were able to convince a minivan driver to take us to the next town to catch a connecting bus. After a few more minor roadblocks, we finally made it to Cusco, 26 hours after leaving Ica.

Cusco is a wonderful city. Not only did it have a great use of space - multiple piazzas, each with attractive business options, churches and government buildings on 3 of its 4 sides are a prime example of this - but there was a vibrancy that was present at any hour of the day or night. I spent a day visiting Ollantaytambo (the Sacred Valley) and other sites, but the real highlight was Machu Picchu on Friday. 

The plaza at Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu itself is amazing – the intricacy of construction of the entire site over 500 years ago still belies comprehension, and the fact that so many of the structures are still made up of original material (97% of the sun temple is made up of original rocks!) despite earthquakes, natural erosion potential and other concerns astounds me. Part of the intrigue is that no one fully agrees on what this UNESCO World Heritage site was actually built for (it was abandoned by the Incas during the Spanish Conquest before completion), theories range from a religious site, to a prison, or even an agricultural testing station.

A view of Machu Picchu (left side) from the sun gate

For me, the next stop was as important as marveling at Machu Picchu close up: a 1 hr trek to the sun gate allowed a gorgeous view of Machu Picchu from above, and spending time reflecting on how small it seemed, yet fitting so naturally within the broader natural Peruvian landscape was simultaneously a peaceful and cathartic experience. Such a prime example of how man made structures can blend with nature, beyond just co-existing and even ubiquitous destruction of our surroundings, gives me hope for the future.

I capped off spring break by flying back to Lima (phew, no more landslides) for the weekend, where I got to check out Old Lima aka downtown, home of the original Pisco Sour drink. Spent an exploratory night in Panama, then finally made it back to Boston.

This summer, I have a fantastic opportunity to explore bits of another continent I’ve been wanting to spend time in: Africa. I’ve been in Addis Ababa for over a month, and am spending a total of 11 weeks working with TechnoServe, a non-profit focused on figuring out and implementing business solutions to poverty. I’m working on scaling up business support to agricultural cooperatives, and developing a plan to expand this across Ethiopia. Aside from spending weekends exploring more UNESCO World Heritage sites (I went to Lalibela and Axum last weekend), I also get to do field trips to other parts of East Africa (I’m spending this weekend in Nairobi).

A louder voice for civil society at Rio+20?

This article was also published at Riomatters.org, a UN sponsored blog discussing the upcoming Rio+20 summit.

Since the creation of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) in 1992, nine major groups of civil society have been given important roles to play as partners in sustainable development. I got to speak with Kiara Worth, the Organizing Partner for the UN Commission for Sustainable Development Major Group for Children and Youth, ahead of the Rio+20 summit to discuss her thoughts on the main goals for Rio+20, participation from youth on key issues and a greater role for civil society through the arts.

RD: What do you see as the main goals for Rio+20?
KW: To advance participation of young people at local, national and global levels to influence sustainable development according to a youth specific policy; and to inspire local action for the implementation of sustainable development.
Rio+20 is an opportunity for youth around the world to be involved in ways they haven’t been before. We can create a world in which human potential is explored, and celebrate our differences via performance arts – bigger notions of sustainable development.
In fact, Rio+20 is the most important conference because it lays the framework for everything else – so not as ‘sexy’ as climate change or other self-contained issues, which reflects the broader challenge of sustainable development as a whole: a massive integrated array of things that is harder to manage. It is difficult to support, there will be lots of challenges, because it requires people to change the way things work. There are a lot of governments that are quite comfortable with their economic and social positioning at the moment, why would they change things?
Ultimately it’s about building that energy, its about giving people the idea that things can be different, its just about how you can make it different. And that’s social transformation, that’s whats so exciting that can come about from these conferences hosted by the UN that are independent of the policy outcomes.

RD: What kind of tangible outcomes do you see emerging from Rio+20?
KW: In terms of concrete outcomes, we are aiming for a stronger policy document that will hold governments accountable. We want to focus on a new concept of sustainable development, to redesign the way the world works – focusing on equity, justice, youth. The outcome document should also include a continued focus on human rights – there needs to be a discussion on how governments are weakening references to human rights obligations from the outcome document.
Additionally, we hope to inspire a youth movement: There have been discussions around whether the negotiations are going to be successful, and whether there is going to be a legally binding document. Will people come to action? Largely the expectation is no, but there is still an opportunity to empower young people across the world to engage in policy negotiations at the local level.
Rio+20 is about building the process of how people engage in the process, rather than just about the outcome document. We have had a focus on policy through our contributions to the Zero draft. Along with formal negotiations, networks have been set up with thousands of youth around the world contributing to policy. Various task forces have aligned to different topics that have contributed to drafting the texts.

RD: How are you planning to get participation from a variety of youth at and beyond Rio+20?

KW: At Rio+20, we have targeted a Youth Blast – a conference of the youth, and the official young people side event at Rio+20. Beyond the Rio+20 summit, we have an e-participation plan. It’s not just about attending Rio+20, its about the youth involving themselves in the process and implementing at the local level.
Youth Blast: About 3000 people registered to attend, and it was divided into 2 segments from 7-12th June.
Objectives of Youth Blast:
a) build capacity: provide young people with the tools to effectively engage in the process at Rio+20
b) strategize for Major Group’s participation at Rio+20
c) develop a post rio+20 agenda that incorporates the outcomes at Rio
7-8 June: Brazilian days – To support the local movement, these sessions were oriented for Brazilian youth in Rio
10-12: International days – The Brazilian youth movement was introduced to the international youth movement in preparation for the main Rio+20 summit.
How: Plenary sessions in the mornings were followed by 2 ‘streams of engagement’ breakout sessions: The first was a policy overview, while the second was an elective stream, consisting of over workshops organized by youth around the world running 45-90 min sessions – over 300 applications to host workshops were received, including youth activism, stories, art workshops, policy workshops.
While only 500 people turned up, likely due to the high cost of international travel and accommodation costs in Rio, that too over a week before the final Rio+20 negotiations, those who had a chance to attend had diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Youth Blast participants at work. Photo courtesy of Sébastian Duyck

Sébastien Duyck, from the Adopt a Negotiator Project, for instance, provided his thoughts: “Walking around the Youth Blast is indeed a unique experience, inspired youth painting banners, while high-level UN officials share their expectations and accept to be challenged by uncompromising activists in relation to the activities of the bodies under their supervision… While discussions on banning (fossil fuel subsidies) were in full swing, another group engaged in discussions with Achim Steiner, UNEP’s Executive Director.”

E-participation plan: We will have thousands of people updating social media, not just on Facebook but also through livestreaming, and tweeting, to build the youth movement across the globe. We’ve hosted several #mycity+20 conferences (like #NY+20, in partnership with the Ford Foundation and others) which has got the youth excited about contributing to Rio+20. Our twitter account, @MGCY_UNCSD continues to post live from Rio, and we encourage people to use the hashtag #beyondrio to input ideas on how young people can build a movement after Rio+20.

RD: Can you elaborate on how you foresee a greater role for civil society through the arts?
KW: The arts can help revive the spirit of Rio: both by instilling greater participation of civil society, and by helping people shift paradigms through motivation and inspiration. Ultimately, the only way we can rethink our perception of wealth is by changing behaviors.
The arts are a mechanism to build relationships, find points of interest and
commonality. The role of art in sustainable development is huge: we can ‘Inspire the future’, reviving the spirit of Rio from ‘92 – Through the arts, video, and social media, we can mobilize a space where people can share ideas, stories, and have a platform to engage with each other.
We’ve had various people around the world have competitions, drawing symbols for Rio+20. At the Youth Blast, there were creative workshops, creative spaces for banners, paint, story cabinets and an exchange of cultures. Our website is and will continue to be a platform where people can engage, network and sustain contact post Rio+20.

Will Rio+20 set us on a path to sustainable development?

This post was also published on riomatters.org, a UN sponsored blog discussing the upcoming Rio+20 summit.

20 years after the original Rio summit began, how far along are we on a path towards sustainable development? While there has been some movement to back up rhetoric, much more still needs to be done – especially in the areas of concrete agreements, implementation and defining further knowledge required going forward. Is Rio+20 the place where substantial progress takes place? Let us take a closer look at the history of the summit to find out.

Prof William Clark

We have come some way from 1992: Two decades ago, it was a struggle to get sustainability on the global agenda. Now, there is no doubt that it is a key concern. The types of issues, governance discussion and our knowledge needs have all evolved over the last 20 years. Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, William Clark, elaborated on these differences in a talk celebrating Earth Day last month:

• Issues: Rather than just focusing on environmental agreements (about the ozone, climate, biodiversity and forests), we are now focusing on development agreements. Prof Clark elaborated, “The current hot topics: jobs, energy food, water, cities and disasters are indications of how humans are now at the center of discussions”.

• Governance: Rather than a top down spirit of governance in the past, where the inclusion of civil society often came belatedly, we now have to focus on polycentric governance, and entrepreneurial green growth through public private partnerships. “Most of the action happens at the regional level, but we what we need to figure out is the global level tasks vs what tasks can be sorted out at the regional and national levels,” Prof Clark explained.

• Knowledge: In the past, we focused on understanding more about the science of how things worked, and the impacts changes in the environment might have on us, through Earth system sciences, and global monitoring technologies. Now, we need to build on this baseline by pushing the edge on sustainability science, and develop decision support systems, especially for policymakers. “This will help states to compute the different ways they can achieve our sustainability goals,” Prof Clark reinforced.

Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon (right confers with Jens Stoltenberg, Prime Minister of Norway. UN Photo/Mark Garten

While our views on these dimensions have evolved due to our experience, we should also be mindful of the different levels of scale that we can operate on. In this field, global and even regional agreements have been very difficult to come by of late. But smaller partnerships, for example the bilateral $1 billion partnership on forests between Norway and Indonesia signed in 2010, can lead the way. Individual organizations can pave the way forward as well. Walmart has been recognized with numerous awards for its sustainability efforts, including publishing an annual Global Responsibility Report which highlights how its Sustainable Value Networks (SVNs) have helped integrate sustainable practices into all parts of their business.
Another debate that is often had is whether we should consider having fewer senior people from key institutions at Rio+20 a failure. While it is sometimes helpful to have high profile politicians around, an increased spotlight is not necessarily helpful.  I spoke with Professor Clark after his Earth Day talk, and he agreed with this sentiment: “We only have to look as far back as the climate change-centered Conference of Parties 15 in Copenhagen in 2010, which was widely expected to conclude with a follow up to the Kyoto Protocol but did not even come close. Especially in the case of Rio+20, where there are multiple fronts to push forward on rather than being restricted to one particular issue, the lower profile can be helpful. Some realistic targets and commitments can be agreed upon, and collaboration at the working level is more likely since less political positioning and maneuvering is necessary.”

Glaciers melting as a result of climate change. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Overall, in order to have a fruitful Rio+20 summit, we must create an environment where organizations are comfortable sharing their successes and failures, so that others may learn and develop more informed plans going forward. Let us also keep in mind that no initiative is too small to appreciate – after all, much of our world has been shaped by persistent individuals who were unafraid to pursue seemingly unrealistic goals. 


Rahul Daswani is a class of 2013 Master in Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. He spent the last 2 years working in climate change as a consultant for the governments of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. This summer he is working in Ethiopia, on a project focused on scaling up farmer cooperatives.

2011 reflections

2011 has been an eventful year, both globally and personally. With major global events like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall St and the death of both Gaddafi and Osama, one thing is clear - 2011 was a year of people crying out for change. We see not only a lot of unhappy people, but also, more importantly, the desire for people to fight for what we believe in, in order that we may see our vision of heaven eventually reach earth. It may be unlikely to happen in our generation, but I'd like to think we are beginning to finally believe again that it is indeed possible, and we are taking steps towards making that dream a reality.

Personally, I have been phenomenally fortunate not only to have had a breadth of experiences this year, but even more importantly to meet and spend time with most of you. I started this year off at a wonderful meditation camp in picturesque South India, and that tranquil state was also evident over the next 5 months in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, as well as the tropical tiny islands with untouched beaches, looking out into seas of turquoise radiance. But before I knew it, this peaceful lifestyle transitioned with 2 months of hectic travel across Asia, before I had to re-adjust to the ever-changing 'civilized' world at grad school in the US. While I have been fortunate enough to be blessed with an array of experiences that allow for rich opportunities for personal growth, they come hand in hand with steep challenges. In particular, I feel that a main challenge many of us are facing, is one of balance - how to maintain equipoise, especially in a confusing world that is moving so quickly that we are bombarded with multiple pieces of information with decisions to make at every given second. Essentially, how to remained centered in a world of continuous change.

People around us often help. In the past, I've undervalued the opinion of an older, wiser generation. Parents, uncles, aunts and mentors gracefully marry the lessons of their experience with adjustments to the context of today's world. There are the friends who support us no matter what, and those who always share their frank opinion no matter how we feel at the time. And, children. Kids retain the ability to simplify the most complex of questions, and amaze us with their idealism. Many times, I feel like it is us who have lost our way, rather than the happy kids who we fool into 'growing up'. Pearls of wisdom greet us at every turn - it is up to us to pay attention, and open our minds to new angles of thinking.

While it is usually useful to seek advice and perspective, ultimately we must all make our own final decisions, and be comfortable with them. In particular, 3 attributes have served me well to maintain equipoise while making decisions in the changing world we live in.
1) Optimism: Having a vision of what the end state of anything could look like is crucial for my self-motivation. And while determining a vision, what inspires me the most is having a bold idea of what I want. Figuring out the 'how' part is important, but a secondary question. First, we must identify what we want, and the method to get there curiously often seems to unfold almost magically at times.
2) Conviction: Once I have thought through my decision and have made up my mind, being steadfast is crucial. Even if things don't work out as I imagined, that doesn't necessarily mean that I made the wrong decision - factors outside my control obviously play a role, but I should be perfectly comfortable with the outcome so long as I know I did my best, given the knowledge that I had at the time. In particular, playing poker serves as a great example of this idea. As long as I am 'all in' with the best shot of winning, I am satisfied that I have played the game right. Of course, the outcome doesn't always go my way - people get lucky sometimes! But with faith that in the long run, the odds will work themselves out, I should continue to adopt the same strategy. More often then not, a positive net balance ends up being the outcome.
3) Drive: Having a plan is one thing, but execution is another. For me, having a passionate belief that what I'm doing leads to making the world a better place (whether in a small or big way) makes a huge difference. Coupled with an optimistic vision and the conviction that I'm on the right path, I end up at a state where I'm at peace with myself. Focused on finding an effective way to achieve what I want, working on it becomes an enjoyable part of my routine.

Thank you all for inspiring me in some way, shape or form. Whether it be sharing stories at a bar, engaging in deep discussions at one of our houses or even chats by email/skype, you've supported me through yet another eventful year and I appreciate it a lot. It never ceases to amaze me how so many of us from such different backgrounds can achieve such magnificent things - I can only hope to continue learning from all of you around me, and contribute in any way that I can to our journey of impact. Also, thanks a lot to those of you who have kept in touch - I love hearing about what and how you are doing, and hope that we continue to stay in touch for a long time to come. I finally have a break from grad school for the next month, so I would love to catch up with you via email/skype if I don't get to see you in person. I'm actually pretty curious as to what your goals/resolutions are for 2012!

My goal for 2012 is the same as it will be for years to come - to leave the world better off than it would be without me in it. In order to achieve that while maintaining my equilibrium, I'm planning to work on 4 resolutions, described as the 4 Agreements in one of my favorite short books on Toltec wisdom by don Miguel Ruiz. I'm happy to elaborate in more detail personally, but its a quick guide on how to approach the quest for Personal Freedom (freedom from fear, illusions, and the fear based beliefs in the mind. In essence it means to win the war over the beliefs in the mind. It is with Personal Freedom that we are free of the human condition of emotional suffering).

So here's wishing us some helpful ingredients that will contribute to a recipe for thriving in 2012: rays of hope, dashes of courage and doses of determination in our pursuit of happiness, baked with amazing people around us with hearts full of love. Happy holidays, and hope to hear from you soon!

NGOs lobbying International Organizations: How to set agendas effectively

This article was first posted on 13 November 2011 at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations (at Harvard University) blog

The reason there are 9 “Major Groups” of stakeholders as part of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development is because these groups are the ones who are pushy and vocal.
Felix Dodds (Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum), shared his tips during a talk at the Harvard Kennedy School on November 10 2011: “By getting involved early, you can have a huge impact on influencing the policy agenda”.

Even when governments are not ready to engage and we want to keep up momentum, there are lots of ways conversations can be kept moving – from coffee chats in capital corridors to more formal discussion with officials on their priorities, constant engagement leads to a strong trust-based bond.
Naturally, the desire to get involved early must be complemented with enough substance in order to get the attention of international organizations. Some ways to do that include a) writing background papers – promoting ideas, workshops, information leading up to a major event b) providing policy recommendations for instance on how to reshape financial markets (indices, governance, incentives, state owned investment vehicles) c) building alliances with key players in industry, for instance on the issue of corporate accountability for sustainability.

While this makes sense as a broad strategy, an audience member raised a question that is likely to be an obstacle to actionable progress: How do we make sure governments collaborate, agree, and execute?

Dodds suggested that the main way had to be by instituting review mechanisms that reward delivery. “NGOs play a role in holding accountability: we have done that very badly over the years – one of the missing links is parliaments. Parliaments could be part of as an annual review mechanism. There is no reason why parliaments can’t hold the executive branch of the government accountable.”
Another useful question was understanding whether this process is replicable outside the sustainable development arena (e.g. health, human rights, etc). Dodds was unambiguous in his response – Yes. In the fields of HIV/Aids and human rights, NGOs had demonstrated that they could set the agenda.
One of the things that Dodds wants to see is more UN summits taking place away from New York. It would be particularly important to have the 2015 MDG Summit hosted by a developing country. “Once we have a pooled expertise, then we get to have a more coherent input to the process”. This winds back to his earlier point – the beginning is the most important bit – if you get things right in agenda setting, governments trust you since you’ve been working with them over a period of time, so they take your ideas.

In my own experience setting up the Office of Climate Change and Development for the Government of Papua New Guinea, I found a lot of these principles to be valid. We appreciated the expertise of NGOs understanding how to get things done on the ground, and by engaging them early, developed a comprehensive, prioritized set of stakeholder interactions in different formats for various provinces. Furthermore, the indigenous people we spoke to felt much more comfortable pursuing ambitious initiatives knowing that NGOs, international organizations and the government together agreed that it was the best course of action.

Rahul Daswani is a pursuing a Masters in Public Policy Degree at the Harvard Kennedy School.

First Harvard Article

Dear friends,

Thanks all for the wonderful response to my first article! This is an article that I submitted to the Harvard Citizen, published on 18th Oct 2011. Text below, if you prefer.

Battle hymn of a happiness optimizer

Rahul Daswani, Contributor, MPP’13

Over the last several weeks, many of us (especially first year students) have been struggling to find a balance between maximizing happiness and maintaining control over where we spend our time. I have found five strategies extremely helpful in maximizing my happiness on a daily basis.

1.     Gratitude: After all, we are at Harvard. Every morning, I wake up and marvel at the fact that I’m actually here. Surprisingly, this isn’t a joke. The fact that our ‘problems’ involve trying to figure out which diplomat to go have a discussion with, or which war veteran to sit next to in class, is an existence most people don’t even begin to imagine. I’ve taken to plugging out of my iPod and plugging in to the sounds, sights and smells around me during my 15 min walk to campus. Try smiling at every person you walk by on your way to school for 5 minutes straight: you might be surprised at the reaction you get.

2.     The 80/20 principle: For the non-consultants among us, a common rule we can apply to our daily life (aka problem sets) is that we can get 80% of the solutions with 20% of the effort (or time). One way to practice this is to have self-imposed time limits for assignments. For instance, I have vowed never to spend more than 3 hours a week on stats. If there’s a part of a question I did not get a chance to complete (or will take too long), I’ll just read over the solution set once its out, and spend the rest of my time doing activities I enjoy a little more than number-crunching.

3.     Burst the bubbles: So now that we are all happier and have new-found time on our hands, what kinds of things could we do? Some of the things I enjoy (outside of HKS and even the Harvard community) are: Exploring the social scene at other schools; stopping by the GSD for beer and BBQ once beer runs out at quorum call; going to a HBS party on Wednesday night; organizing a house crawl.  Better yet, I enjoy exploring areas outside of Cambridge, such as taking a day trip to Maine (best lobster I’ve ever had); spending a weekend at a Cape Cod beach; or going on a date Thursday night at Stella in Boston with someone stellar.

4.     Cultivate mentors: In an environment where so many people have spent significant amounts of time living and working in each of our ‘dream jobs’, it would be foolish not to learn from their experience. Take advantage of formal as well as informal opportunities to meet people who you can bounce ideas off. The Mid-Careers often share classes with us kids, or are involved in the same service projects. The ones I have met have been nothing but open and excited to provide guidance at our behest.

5.     Take an annoying classmate to lunch: Wait, what? Yes, I’m sure we all have a small number of people who just get on our nerves every time they talk. Our instincts tell us to walk away to pre-empt any chance of a prelude to a conversation. Or is it just me? In any case, one of the most rewarding things I’ve done is sit down for an extended conversation (over lunch, in the courtyard, at a house party) with one of those people to understand more about where they come from, and why they think the way they do. Often, I’ve found it allows me to refine my own perspective on life, and think about things in a way I hadn’t thought of before. Not to mention, that person becomes much more of a real friend to me than just another ‘Facebook friend’.

These are some of the strategies I have used to avoid death by problem sets, keep my perspective and optimize my happiness. If you have any other ideas or strategies, I’d love to hear ‘em.  See you at the next party.

Mt Wilhelm

Dear friends, It is with a bittersweet symphony that my 15-month adventure in PNG ends. I vividly recall first stepping foot in Port Moresby in March last year, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to take on a challenging career in the government of a country no one I knew had ever been to. Reports of the country were mixed, safety being cited as a constant concern but balanced (for me) that the amazing biodiversity that was promised - double the marine life that is in the Red Sea! It will be surreal to leave this place that has been my home for over a year, filled with amazing people who have welcomed me wholeheartedly into their lives. But I'm sure this is not the last I've seen of PNG, and so I venture on to new pastures of self-development, that I may contribute to even greater heights in the future.

Before I left PNG, I had the opportunity for 1 big mission - climb the country's highest mountain, Mt Wilhelm (4502m). Like most adventures in PNG, this turned out to be much more than just a mission, it provided a prime example to reflect on the wonders of PNG, her people and my time here.

path to Betty's Lodge

Day 1: Flew to Mt Hagen, and 5 hr drive to Betty's Lodge. Betty's lodge is at 2800m, and is the furthest one can drive by road, before scaling the rest of Mt Wilhelm on foot. Betty herself is quite a character. Having won numerous awards for entrepreneurship, Betty not only set up the lodge, but also manages it on a daily basis (has over 30 beds), and cooked us some wonderful food. We proceeded to rest and acclimatize for the next 2 days of fun, socializing around a fire with other tourists from Europe, Australia, including a group of 3 who returned from scaling Mt Wilhelm and returning in a day (Betty called them crazy).

Betty's trout!

Day 2: During the early part of the day, we got to wander around the compound, and discovered Betty's business was more diverse and extensive than we had expected: she also managed a fish farm, with thousands of trout separated by size among 7 large containers. On the path leading to the farm, the path was adorned with a magnificent array of flowers - much like PNG is dressed with people from its 800+ tribes, coexisting across the country, blooming at different times and each unique in their own beautiful way. After a light lunch, our trek began under the canopy of the rainforest. A well traversed path and an efficient guide took us from Betty's lodge to base camp (3500m) in just under 3 hours. 

Base camp

'Base camp' was quite an apt description - this was the base of the mountain, with no more well worn easy tracks to follow. And it was effectively a 'camp', a roof over our heads, gas stove (instant noodles and milo for dinner) for the night, and a place with function but little form. That was irrelevant however, because the beauty surrounding us was amazing. Peering out of base camp, one immediately sees a beautiful lake, as well as the waterfall feeding gently into it, caressing the mighty mountain as the water makes a languid journey downwards. Our roommates at base camp turned out to be an extremely interesting Belgian dude, and an Indonesian family who arrived much later. The Belgian regaled us with tales of how he decided to take a gap in University (between his 3rd and 4th years), and travel for 2 years. He had slowly made his way up from Australia, and was spending a month traveling upwards along the coast of Papua New Guinea. He had been through the madness of public buses, stayed with locals he met on his journeys, named a newborn child of a village, and intended to sail across the border to Indonesia in a few weeks time. Yet another reminder that people we meet in this country often have a curious mix of a desire for exploration, high flexibility of plans, and are a self-motivated bunch (with any of these 3 missing, one won't survive too long in the bush). After a short nap, we awoke at 2am to start the 6-hour climb to the summit with borrowed flashlights and our trusty guide.

We made it!

Day 3: After the first hour armed with a small flashlight each, darting over muddy puddles on our steep ascent parallel to a waterfall we could hear cascading beside us, we asked our guide whether it would be this steep and muddy the whole way up. After deliberating for awhile, he finally answered "Well its steep and muddy about half of the time.....and steep and rocky the other half of the way." On the bright side, we were glad he was honest with us. This allowed us to be mentally prepared for the journey ahead, and pace ourselves through sunrise to head closer to the summit with every step. 

In many ways, the journey up Mt Wilhelm was reflective of my time in PNG. Absolutely, constantly punctuated by all kinds of beauty. A challenging working environment, setting up a government agency in a quarter of the time it usually takes required navigation of stakeholders and terrain which was the equivalent of steep, rocky and muddy ground. Of course, I was also extremely to be accompanied by amazing guides. People who were keen to lend a hand, direct me on the best path to take, and excite me to carry on. Most of all, the warm, accepting, friendly people I've met over the past 15 months will remain with me always.

Lukim yu PNG, and thank you all for being a part of this journey with me.