Hello Everyone

First, let me apologize for, once again, failing to stay in contact with many of you.

Just a brief update. Over the past 10 months I have been living in Little Rock, Arkansas working on a Master's Degree at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. As a member of the Inaugural Class I, along with my 13 classmates, have had some incredible experiences, met some amazing people, and have been given unparalleled opportunities to take public service in exciting new directions. How I got the chance to be a part of this bold experiment I'll never know, but there is nothing I'd rather be doing right now.














With Jeffrey Sachs

As we close out the school year most of us will move directly into a 10-week summer internship project. Classmates of mine will be working all over the world with organizations in New York City, DC, Grenada, Bolivia, the Netherlands, Sudan, South Africa, India, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. I will be working in Kabul, Afghanistan with the Roqia Center for Rights, Studies, and Education under the direction of Mrs. Nasrine Gross.

The Roqia Center is a local Non-Governmental Organization that has been working in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban and has been the only group that has, among other things, organized and implemented successful coed literacy courses. Given tradition and the nature of gender relations in Afghanistan, this success is unprecedented in recent times. Please read about Nasrine and her work: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/EGUA-6MGTTV?OpenDocument

My trip will begin in just two days. I will fly to Philadelphia to spend some time with Erin, my girlfriend who is studying at Temple University. On Wednesday the 24th I will take a bus to Washington, DC for some siteseeing with my classmates. On Saturday the 28th I will leave DC for Moscow where I will spend a nice restful 38 hours in the airport before my flight into Kabul, via Baku, Azerbaijan. I'm looking forward to the corkscrew/surface-to-air missile evasion landing technique going into Kabul International Airport.

I hope to update this blog at least once a week. Please check back often, leave comments, and email me! I hope to hear from everyone.