After the Rose CafeI attended in which Ruth talked about her life in Malawi and her work on the environment, I went to have dinner with her. I was hoping to learn more about her personally and her experiences in education at Cornell. It was also the first dinner talk I attended; we all met up at Rose dinning hall and got our food. Then we went up to the Rose Seminar room to talk to Ruth in a quieter environment than the dinning room.

We started the talk off by introducing ourselves again to Ruth, and Ruth reintroduced herself and her friend who also does work at Cornell. We talked about her life in Malawi and how she has been doing in Ithaca. She has not been able to go many places, but she said that she enjoyed everywhere she had gone. She mentioned how different it is from her home.

Soem other students brought up how different it is to experience global climate change in the US than in Malawi. For example, people in Malawi do not have to ability to deny climate change because they see it and experience it first hand. When crops do not grow, people go hungry. And when there are floods, people are injured.

However, in the US, we are so industrialized we are often sheltered from nature. Our surplus in food allows us to eat food regardless of rainfall. And when temperatures go up or down, we have air conditioning and heaters. It is much easier to deny climate change when you’re sheltered from it.

Also, it was really funny and cute to see the kids playing with each other. When Ruth panicked because the little boy was locked in the cabinet was actually precious. I think because she is a mother, she is more inclined to make sure kids are safe. Even though the kid was not in danger, her concern was heartwarming, and the way she made sure he had enough air was cute.

I went to a talk with Ruth Magreta in which she went into a little more detail about her work towards environmental sustainability in Malawi. One of the things she talked about that was very interesting was that people in the US have the ability to debate about whether or not global warming is real. In Malawi, because maize is such a large source of income, it is very noticeable that the environment is changing. Whether it be because of global warming or not, it is impossible for those in Malawi to ignore. Meanwhile, people in the United States are not as drastically affected by climate change; we live in an industrialized society in which we produce more than we need. So when droughts occur, we still have enough food to eat.

Ruth was such an inspiring person to talk to. She invests herself in making sure that her home has what it needs; that means taking time away from her family. She shared on story of how her and her two children got stuck in a flood. She had to carry them through rushing water to safety. And although she was terrified, she had to put on a strong face to keep her kids from panicking.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a dinner conversation with our visiting fellow, Ruth Magreta. Her expertise was about climate change and agriculture, specifically in Malawi. I found the conversation very insightful since I knew very little about the effects of climate change in countries like Malawi before. We hear a lot about the effects of climate change here in the U.S. but in sort of removed ways.  We hear of weather phenomenons and changing temperatures but Ruth told us personal anecdotes about floods that happen in her area almost every year. She recounted the one that hit last year in which she had to cross a flooded river in her car with her children, truly scared for their lives. This spawned conversations about how the countries that have the most resources to combat climate change, like the U.S., usually don’t feel the direct and visual impact of its most consistent and problematic effects.

The conversation also shifted to other cultural differences between Malawi and the U.S. For example, Ruth and another visiting scholar asked about gender ratios in education at Cornell and were shocked to find out the basically equivalent ratio between boys and girls. It’s moments like this that remind me of the intangible privileges I have living in the U.S. This entire conversation was eye-opening in that it challenged me to look at the problems that the world faces as a whole and the privileges we have in the U.S. We need to be more vigilant about how we treat our planet not only for ourselves and futures but also for the people across the world that don’t have the resources to prevent such problems that impact their daily life.

On Thursday, September 28th, I had the chance to have dinner with Ruth Magreta, a PhD student from Malawi that is currently a STAARS (Structural Transformation of African Agriculture and Rural Spaces) fellow visiting Cornell to establish a network that will be used to foster future collaboration. Ruth is particularly interested in addressing climate change with regards to agriculture and food security in her native country of Malawi as she has seen and felt the effects firsthand in a region where many people suffer harshly from the effects of a changing climate without ever realizing what the causative factors are. It comes down to a season by season hope for many that the rains will come, and as Ruth poignantly stated, if they do not, people will not eat. When the rains do arrive, people are equally leery that they will not fall with such force to cause rivers to erupt within minutes and cause untold destruction. Often, harsh rains far upstream will catch villagers off-guard in lower lands, sweeping people away never to be seen again. Over the past few decades, abnormal weather conditions have increased in prevalence and severity, leaving many wary of what is yet to come in a nation already burdened in its efforts to industrialize.

Of particular interest to Ruth was our opinions on climate change and of the United States as a whole. The stability of the food system within the United States and other industrialized nations has had a numbing effect on the opinions of many with regards to the extent or even existence of climate change. After all, someone in the US expects all staple foodstuffs to be available every day of the year without exception, regardless of potential crop failures. If a crop fails in one region, we expect it to still be on the shelves in equal quantity, imported from some distant place that often is never considered by the consumer. If climate change does not personally threaten something so fundamental as food security in a Western nation, how can people truly ever understand the potential implications of such a threat? The people of Malawi do not have that luxury. If a crop fails, there will be no food of that type for the year. If that crop is a staple, people will starve; people will die, and this is a reality that Malawians and many others in developing nations will have to increasingly confront as weather patterns continue to intensify in severity.

For me as someone studying plant breeding and genetics with an emphasis on global food security, this dinner was an incredible opportunity to speak to someone with such a valuable perspective. There are not many people in the United States that can truly tell you what it is like to live through a famine or to feel the effects of climate change ravaging your village. Talks like these affirm how critical it is to address global food security and to actually speak and listen to people personally effected to gain their invaluable perspective that will be needed as we work together to confront this issue on a global scale.

On Wednesday, September 20th Ruth Magreta of Malawi shared her inspiring story with the members of Flora Rose House.  Malawi.  A country I do not often think of.  It’s a country that doesn’t come up in my everyday conversations.  Ruth shared stories of her life growing up.  She encouraged us to pick up on the drastic socioeconomic differences between the United States and Malawi.

Ruth lived not too far from a small village.  She showed us pictures of her neighbors’ small huts.  Her family did not suffer so much from hunger and sickness as did her neighbors.  There was severe flooding and occasional drought.  Their education facilities have minimal resources.  Ruth cooked most of the family’s maize porridge meals without help.  In this way, she accepted the traditional gender roles in Malawi.

This however was not a sob story.  With every fact Ruth would anticipate our empathy.  She off-put our sorrows by saying, “It was fine.” She didn’t know that there was better.  The village was all she knew and “It was fine.”

Ruth then told us about her research.  On a separate note, it was inspiring to see another woman of color in plant science.  At Cornell this is not common.  I’m often the only black girl in my lectures.  I’m a minority in my major and a minority in the black community where no one can understand my passion for plant science.  Ruth was very passionate about her studies.  One day I will be like Ruth raising a family and simultaneously taking on projects to improve international horticulture.

I am grateful that Ruth brought Malawi to us.  Maybe one day I will go to Malawi.