The 6th Edition of the CRS CHAD Seed Fair. Samdjida Makina, right, and Ibrihin Yaya, are two of the venders for the fair. Photo by Matt Keller/CRS

Guereda and Adré October 2010 – Our day started at 5 am with a cup of coffee and no sunlight. I gave my wife a kiss through the mosquito net and said goodbye. I was heading to Eastern Chad for the 6th Edition of the CRS CHAD Seed Fair, my first trip since my arrival in the International Development Fellowship Program [IDFP]. Chris and I were going to Guereda and Watade Nadjidjim a CRS staff member based in Abéché was heading to Adré for the other half of the CRS Seed Fair. Chris Schunk is the manager of the Eastern Chad Horticulture Project serving households affected by violent conflict, which is funded by the United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA).
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Americans will do anything for Africa, someone once said, except read about it. This is something that people who write about Africa think about. People like Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times’ columnist. Kristof has his methods—using Americans as an avenue through which to hook people on African issues—and he wrote about them recently.

There’s another way to get people to care about Africa. Convince Americans to go to visit. Let them rub up against rural poverty. Let them cuddle Burkinabé babies, drink home-brewed sorghum beer, and rock back and laugh with Ghanaian villagers. That’s exactly what a group of Hispanic Americans did recently. They traveled to Burkina Faso and Ghana to learn about Catholic Relief Services and the people we help.
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Lane Hartill visited Sudanese refugee camps in eastern Chad last week. CRS’ partner, Secours Catholique et Développement, manages three camps.

It’s been a while since Mahmoud has heard from his old friend, President Barack Obama.

“I sat under that tree and talked with him for half an hour,” says Mahmoud Anoor Hamed, a leader in Milé camp, a Sudanese refugee camp in eastern Chad. Most European leaders don’t get that kind of face time with Obama.
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