By Peggy McInerny, Director of Communications

UCLA International Institute, May 4, 2016 —“As an alumnus living in as dynamic a region as East Africa, I’ve got to say I’m having the time of my life,” reports Wayne Wong (UCLA 2013) from Uganda, where he is working as a Peace Corps health educator.* “Never did I imagine I would live so vividly the subjects taught in lectures, and experience firsthand the international relations, economic and cultural issues debated during discussion sections [at UCLA].”

Wong majored in microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics (MIMG) and minored in Global Studies. Courtesy of a Kramer Global Leadership Scholarship, he was able to attend a summer travel study program in Paris on postcolonial France as part of his minor. After he graduated in September 2013, he continued to do research at MIMG while he waited for a Peace Corps posting in Uganda, where he has been living and working since June 2014.

Acquiring real-world experience

Wayne began researching opportunities to work in international health abroad during his senior year. “I had spent three years in school studying microbiology and globalization issues in books. While I was certain I wanted a graduate-level education in the two subjects I found so fascinating, I didn’t feel ready to decide the exact direction of my future studies without some real-world experience first.”

An ad for the Peace Corps soon led him to a recruiter’s cafeteria table display. At the time, he recounts, “The thought of having to serve for two years was intimidating … now that I’ve only got [a few] months left, I can definitively say two years is the minimum for anyone to begin to understand the people and communities they are living with and serving. I followed up on that flyer on a bit of a whim, but it led to the best decision I’ve ever made.”

Wayne says his education has enabled him to better understand the realities he now lives on the ground. “Studying at UCLA encouraged me to think in an analytical fashion,” he says, “not only about the ‘who, what, when, why, and hows,’ but also the ways they help determine each other — the ways in which the ‘who’ can affect ‘when’ sanctions are enforced, the means by which the ‘why’ can affect ‘how’ a war begins.”

According to the UCLA alum, Uganda is a stabilizing political force in East Africa. Led by President Yoweri Museveni, he says that the country has arguably the best intelligence network and military fighting force in the region. “Because of its influence, capabilities and generally positive inclinations towards the West (the United States and the United Kingdom, specifically),” he remarks, “the U.S. has come to depend on Uganda to promote stability and U.S. interests in the region.”

Security may be well funded in Uganda, but malaria control is not. “Although malaria is transmitted from mosquitoes to humans in 95 percent of the country, the program dedicated to the control of malaria receives only about 2 percent of the budget,” he explains. “That is how important security in the region is to Uganda – and to the U.S., given the amount of support it provides.”

But, as Wayne observes, “when those [security] institutions are wielded inappropriately by the Ugandan government to repress demonstrators and public outcries against corruption and lack of transparency, they work against the democratic, cultural values of free speech and assembly the U.S. tries so hard to promote.”

The underfunded battle against malaria

A Peace Corps volunteer, Wayne works to prevent malaria transmission as part of a large, multicountry malaria control and elimination program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development: the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI).

“Because only a few species of mosquitoes are able to transmit human malaria, and their behavior is so unique (they feed and rest indoors), we are able to spray a fine mist of safe, WHO-approved insecticide on the inside walls of homes to kill the mosquitoes transmitting malaria without contaminating the environment,” he says. Called “indoor residual spraying” or IRS, he explains that the method was used by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to combat malaria in the South, and by European states to eliminate malaria around the Mediterranean in the 1950s.

This pickup truck has about 14 boxes of WHO-approved insecticide loaded in the back,
enough to protect about 10,080 men, women, and children. (Photo: Wayne Wong.)

In Uganda, which has the deadliest kind of malaria parasite (P. falciparum), most deaths caused by malaria are in children under 5 years of age. “Many children who suffer severe cerebral malaria but do not die incur brain damage and are mentally disabled,” explains Wayne. Adults who have suffered multiple cases of malaria continue to be laid low by the disease. Falling ill, he continues, “[takes] away important days of productivity during the rainy season when planting crops is of paramount importance, and drains financial resources…[as] visits to the health center require money for transportation, tests and medication.”

Despite proven methods, Wayne says the scope of the PMI efforts in Uganda is insufficient. “While IRS is doing a good job at controlling malaria levels in the East, rates have gone back up in other parts of the country. There aren’t enough funds to cover all high-risk areas of the country, so the fight is really one to mitigate damage, not to eliminate the disease. And we are slowly losing!” he remarks.

Given his background in microbiology and molecular genetics, Wayne quickly understood the science behind PMI and was soon assisting the USAID contractor in Uganda with regular entomological monitoring to detect resistance among mosquitoes. “Most of my job the past year and a half has been building the capacity of government officers… to conduct IRS on their own,” he says. Their ability to succeed, however, will depend on government funding.

Cultural lessons

Wayne has been living with a host family from the Acholi ethnic group from Northern Uganda, part of the Luo ethnic group that extends geographically from South Sudan to eastern Kenya. (“President Obama’s father was Luo,” says Wayne). The UCLA graduate is impressed by the resilience of the Acholi community in the face of the long war (and child abductions) in northern Uganda waged by the Lord’s Resistance Army, which is headed by Joseph Kony. “My host parents returned to Gulu, the epicenter of the war, to resettle and rebuild the area. They are some of the best people I’ve met in Uganda,” he shares.

“A huge cultural lesson I have learned while living and working here is the importance of greeting and acknowledging the people around you. Not greeting people upon their arrival to your house, office or shop is an insult tantamount to deeming the person unworthy of your attention,” he says. Another big lesson has been seeing the vast disparity of wealth among Ugandans. Rural villages may lack infrastructure and protected water sources, says Wayne, “yet Uganda also has shiny Walmart-esque companies, [modern] grocery stores, malls, mansions and fine dining establishments,” he says. “It is only the gap between the rich and the poor and the overwhelming number of the latter that is shocking.”

He has also been surprised by what he describes as “the juxtaposition of suburban living and village life in my village, and the ease with which my host parents transition between the two. My ‘village’ has more characteristics in common with a suburb back in the States: nice Western homes with dirt driveways, running water, electricity, satellite dish connections… Interspersed among these Western houses are grass-thatched huts made with fired brick and cement— home to any extended family member wanting to live in the vicinity of the main house.”

The cultural lessons have naturally gone both ways. His host parents, for example, were very surprised to meet a Chinese-American. “For the first three weeks I lived with my host parents, they didn’t believe I had two Asian parents,” he recounts, “even after explaining my real parents’ immigration to the U.S. in the early 1980s and my birth in California. It was a bit of an effort to convince them that, no, neither my dad nor mom were white, and that having a white parent wasn’t required for me to be an American.”

With his Peace Corps experience soon coming to a close, Wayne is exploring new options for the future. “Living in Uganda, I’ve seen the need for public health experts grounded in a background of medicine and practice, so I’ll be applying to medical school and a master’s program in public health to fill that gap,” he says, “It’s pretty convenient, as I’m passionate about both!” But true to his interest in Global Studies, he’s also considering taking the Foreign Service exam and working as a diplomat for the next few years. Wherever he lands, we look forward to hearing from him.

* Any views and opinions expressed by Wayne Wong in this article are his alone and do not reflect the views of the Peace Corps, the U.S. government, or the UCLA International Institute.