Hello from Bukavu

As we in the US focus all of our attention on the upcoming Presidential elections we tend to lose sight of the global picture. This morning I received an email from Lewis Kasindi Kilongo (2008 HSI alumni from the DRC) that reminded me to look beyond the latest polls and appreciate how lucky we are. The note was very short; the subject line was "Hello from Bukavu", it read:

I hope this email finds you in good health. I just wanted to let you know that we are ok even though the situation is going from bad to worse out here; the echo has really become a sound. I mean even in Bukavu there's so much insecurity at the moment. Two more dead bodies of young men were found laid on the street this morning! Many of the expatriates we work with for Food for the Hungry have evacuated. Anyways, I hope all is gonna be ok! May peace prevail.

This email is a poignant reminder that there are many countries are still in the midst of political upheaval and humanitarian crises.

I certainly hope Lewis is right, that everything will be ok, and the Congolose government and the rebel forces can work together to resolve the situation, in the meantime, my thoughts and prayers are with Lewis, his family and his country.

2009 Program

The good news is that the applications are finally available on-line. This year's applications are word documents that can be downloaded and saved to your local computer. Then type your information into the document (in the alloted spaces) and email the completed application back to us. You can also download the reference forms seperately and email them to your referees to fill out - they can be emailed directly to us or sent back to you to submit with your completed application. Don't forget to get letters of reference from your academic and NGO referees. These can be scanned & emailed, faxed or posted to us via regular mail. The final signature page (Form 7) will have to be printed signed and the returned via email (scanned), fax or regular mail.

Now, for the bad news: the financial crisis has reared it's ugly head here at HSI. We spent last month crunching the budget numbers and have regretfully had to make some tough decisions. Since our funding has been drastically reduced we are forced to cut the number of participants for the 2009 program. Unfortunately after many hours re-working the budget we are left with no other alternative: this year we must reduce the number of participants to 10 non-US and 5 US students. Hopefully, after the dust settles and this economic downturn is reversed, in 2010 we will be able to bring our numbers back up to the original 20 non-US and 10 American participants.

As always please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.

Mini HSI Reunions

Since the end of HSI 2008 I've been in touch with most of the alumni; many of the local students have stopped by the office or come to the house to say hello.

I know that many of you have been keeping in touch via facebook, skype and yahoo IM; and I'm especially pleased to see that the CollectiveX groupsite is being used to trade professional and personal messages as well as thoughts and ideas on current events.

However I've recently had the chance to catch up with some of you face to face.

About two weeks ago James (2008 alum) decided to organize a bonfire at Crown Point. He invited the local alumni and their friends. It was certainly great to see some familiar faces. By the time I left the beach James, Matt, Marlon and Seana had arrived with thier friends and Kaprese was on her way...Thanks James for taking the lead and trying to get us all together again.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to spend the weekend in Amsterdam. For those of you who haven't been there yet I highly recommend it! It's a fabulous city with great energy and more museums than you can count. We were lucky enough to schedule our trip while Davor and Tatiana (both 2008 alums) were in town. They were gracious enough to fit us into their weekend and came out to visit.

It's very nice to know that I now have friends around the world -and hopefully I'll get the chance to visit all of the alumni at some point in the future.