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Trustee Scholar Nate Parker ’08 (Milford, N.H.) likes helping people. He spent his spring semester in Kenya, studying malaria prevention for children.
The first part of Parker’s trip was coursework in Nairobi. The biology major studied the Kiswahili language, public health, and development, receiving most of his instruction from University of Nairobi professors. In Nairobi, he stayed with a financially comfortable Christian family of the Luo, one of Kenya’s largest tribes.
“My father in Nairobi works for an Italian agricultural NGO [non-governmental organization] in south Sudan, and my mother is a secretary for a major insurance company,” says Parker. “Initially, I was surprised by how similar this family is to families in the States – they could easily fit into American culture. I had a brother my age in this family who became a very good friend of mine over the course of the semester.”
During an intensive 10-day program on Kiswahili, Parker stayed with a Swahili family in the Bodo village on Kenya’s south coast. His host father is a fisherman with three young children. Because he was the only one who spoke English, Parker was able to improve his skills in Kiswahili.
Parker also took part in a month-long independent study focusing on barriers to malaria prevention for children in Nyahera, a village in western Kenya near Lake Victoria. There, Parker stayed with a schoolteacher his age.
“This was a great opportunity to live just like a person in rural Kenya for an extended period of time, with no electricity or running water and catching rainwater off the roof in big basins to use for bathing and drinking,” he says. “It was rainy season in Kenya during the time I spent in Nyahera, which meant torrential downpours almost every night. One of my favorite things was the sound of the hard rain on the tin roof – it was deafening. All my neighbors in Nyahera had young children, and most mornings there would be a line of about 20 kids sitting outside my door waiting for me to give them crayons and paper that I brought along.”
While studying malaria in Nyahera, Parker and several friends visited Senator Barack Obama’s grandmother, Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama, in the nearby village of Alego. With the help of an interpreter, the group talked for nearly two hours.
“We talked about Barack and his visit to Kenya in 2006 and the rest of her family,” says Parker. “She was hesitant to talk about politics with the upcoming elections, as she has frequently been misquoted by members of the media visiting her at her home.”
Parker also had the opportunity to travel throughout Uganda and Rwanda. In Uganda, he saw the NileRiver and its source at Lake Victoria, stayed in the capital city of Kampala, and toured QueenVictoriaNational Park. In Rwanda, he spent a few days in the capital city of Kigali, where he met people his age who lost their families in the 1994 genocide. He also visited the Genocide Memorial and one of the churches where major massacres occurred.
“The day I visited the massacre site in Kigali was probably the most difficult of my experiences in East Africa,” he says. “Without knowing what to expect, I walked into the church and was taken aback when I found it filled with shelves with the skulls, bones, and clothing of the 5,000-plus victims of this particular massacre. My few days in Rwanda were powerful, to say the least.”
One of the aspects of traveling in Africa that struck Parker the most was the generous hospitality of the people.
“Everyone was incredibly welcoming and friendly,” he says. “During my month-long research period in Nyahera, I walked up to countless homes uninvited and asked to speak with the families about malaria. I was welcomed into every single home and many urged me to stay with them as they prepared tea and sometimes even full meals. While food, language, and other cultural practices were at times very different from those to which I am accustomed, it was very easy to adapt and appreciate everything when the people were so friendly and welcoming.”
After graduating from Lafayette, Parker plans to spend a few years abroad with the Peace Corps or a health-related NGO. He eventually wants to pursue a dual M.D./master’s of public health degree and work on pediatric medicine and public health. He believes his time in Kenya has helped prepare him for those goals.
“I’ve learned to approach every situation with an open mind and to value cultures that are very different from my own,” he says. “My time in Kenya helped open my eyes to the fact that, to effectively participate in the development efforts of countries like Kenya, we must actively seek to understand the cultures and realistic needs of the people.”
Parker was selected as a finalist in the 2007 Harry S. Truman Scholarship competition. He was one of 200 finalists representing 129 U.S. colleges and universities. He has performed EXCEL Scholars research with Laurie Caslake, associate professor and acting head of biology.
He is program director of the Best Buddies program through the LandisCommunityOutreachCenter. Last year, he was named Outstanding College Buddy Director of the Year in the Philadelphia region. He was program director of Habitat for Humanity and Hunger and Homelessness Week last fall and co-director of Lafapalooza, a one-day service event, last spring. He also volunteers at the SpringGardenChildcareCenter in Easton.
Selected from among Lafayette’s top applicants, Trustee Scholars like Parker have distinguished themselves through exceptional academic achievement in high school. Lafayette provides them with an annual minimum scholarship of $7,500 ($8,000 effective with the Class of 2009) or a grant in the full amount of their demonstrated need if the need is more than $7,500.