Inaugural visit to the UK

Inaugural visit to the UK--15 hours. Thanks to Ian and Carole, I now have a fiercely favorable impression of the UK! It all began when I told Alan that I'll have a ~15 hour layover at LHR; he informed me that his brother and wife (who didn't know me) would be happy to retrieve me from the airport and show me around. And they did.

We started with toast and coffee. I went for a nice run through Sunbury park and around the neighborhood then back along the Thames. After a refreshing shower in a closet cleverly designed by Ian, we headed to Kingston (where Ian and Alan grew up) for coffee...along the Thames an a boat! Although the day started out a bit overcast, windy and cool, the sun came out around noon and it warmed up to ~70F.

From Kingston, we backtracked to Hampton Court.

There we saw the beautiful gardens; wandered around the castle; got reprimanded by a security guard, who seemed happy to have a reason to interact with people; and admired the world's largest vine (which had already begun to fruit!) that was apparently growing when the infamous Henry VIII occupied the place.

Jeannie (their boat) provided a lovely setting for Ian and Carole's tour de la Thames...past narrow canal boats, extravagant house boats, tiny island cottages and beautiful gardens!

Common Threads: After our boat ride, Carole had me in stitches as she gave me the long and short of how random community members were united to create an embroidery display to represent their town for the year 2000. As she filled me in, it became clear that this project provided a great introduction to their tight knit community. All sorts of people, who would never normally find themselves embroidering, were engaged in this project...including a former General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress (also a member of embroidery gang); he entertained us with a story as we had tea at the Walled Garden.

Seeing Carole's embroidery project and her subsequent encounters with sundry Sudburians got me thinking about community. People in the community with very different skills collaborated on this project and once it was completed, continued give back and make their community a better place to live! How great is that? While they've chosen embroidery to sew the seeds of community, it really could be done in any medium. Anywhere.

It begged the question: why do I want to go all the way to Malawi to "do good things" when a simple, well-integrated, community based initiative could achieve the same desired effect--helping people to make a difference in their own community.

This is probably something I'll struggle with regularly during my time in Malawi, or at least I hope I will; it might look something like this (though surely not as graceful as this horse statue at the Walled Garden).

What are the benefits and limitations of public health efforts at different levels--global, community, policy, lab and individual? How do you identify the "right" level for intervention for desired outcomes? Well, maybe there isn't a "right" level. Or a "right" anything. I'd settle for figuring out which levels require intervening for each issue and which interventions are effective. For personal gratification, I clearly don't have to go further than my own community. Now...if only I could convince everyone else, in every other community to do the same!