CHRISTOPHER DOWSWELL,
AN UNSUNG HERO,
A UNIQUE HUMAN BEING SUCCUMBS AT 64, on November 19, 2011
A very personal tribute
 This picture has been sent to me by Don Doering, formerly at the BMGF, taken at his house, of Chris holding Don’s baby! Chris loved babies (You can just see it above). |
When one operates internationally and travel as much as I do, one establishes friendships that are as close as some of the ones one may have at home. Chris was like a brother to me. We connected well as if we were born in the same village. I mourn him, I miss him and I pray hard to the Almighty, our Maker to keep his soul in Eternal peace. He deserves that. He went too soon for me. We had planned to do so much together, hunger fighting, in the year 2012. Well, God had other plans. And in these types of situations, we really have no choice, do we? My daughter has just seen the picture above and said: “Oh dear Mummy, he looks like Father Christmas”.
Chris will have this Christmas in heaven. He had planned to have friends from the old days of CIMMYT over for Christmas, at his Mexico home.
I am doing this tribute to be able to deal with my own grief.
I feel for his family, who must feel much worse than I do. May God comfort them and give them a peace of mind; they have not got over the death of Dowswell Senior who died barely three months ago.
I have known Chris for the past 17 years. I have lost loved ones over the years, and each time it happens, it is like it has never happened to me before and I have to go through the motions all over again. Clearly, it has not been an easy year for me. Only in September 2011, two months ago, I eulogized the late Wangari Maathai and now I have to do it all over again for my very special friend, and comrade Chris Dowswell. Chris and I shared a passion for smallholder farmers in Africa, and we shared a vision for an Africa free of perpetual hunger and malnutrition.
We received a message from his brother Steve Dowswell announcing the sad and sudden death of Chris on November19 of heart attack when he was on a tread mill. I read this over and over again and told myself: “Surely this cannot be true!”We had just been communicating on SAA’s 2012 Calendar.
SAA had just had a great celebration in Mali, of 25 years of achievement where we were hosted by Mali’s President His Excellency Amadou Traore’ and attended by former Presidents of Nigeria and Benin, Excellencies Olusegun Obasanjo and Soglo. Mr Yohei Sasakawa had stayed with us throughout the one week celebrations which included visits to farmers in the field. Chris was there in his usual self: present, witty, engaging, friendly, respectful, with is camera and always telling us that we had a long way to go and should not sit on some laurels celebrating.
Just before Dr Norman Borlaug died in September of 2009, Chris got me to join the Board and in 2010 at the first Norman symposium in Addis Ababa, Chris took me from the podium after I had chaired the last session to congratulate as the new Chair of the Board, to succeed Dr Borlaug. This was endorsed by the Board and needless to mention how so humbling and unexpected it all was for me. The position had been kindly occupied by Dr Masa Iwanaga for 3 years in an Acting capacity.
I have never known of a more selfless person. SAA will never be the same without Chris. Because of him, SAA is where it is TODAY. CHEERS CHRIS, Well Done, my friend. And THANK SO MUCH.
Chris was there for everyone. As soon as he met you, he wanted to know everything about you, and he would also share a lot about himself. During the 2008 post election violence in Kenya, following my message to friends about what had happened; Chris was there with me in Nairobi. We sat at the Intercontinental Hotel, only 3 of us: Chris, my sister and I. The Hotel had been deserted as the violence raged. Chris came through from Ethiopia just to come and see how I was doing and pulled out USD 500 to assist me. It was not the money. It was a friend saying: “I am with you”. That was him. Each time there was someone with a problem, that Chris knew, whether in or outside of SAA, Chris would be there.
In October 2011, just like the previous year, Chris and I both attended the World Food Prize. He also looked after me as though I were his little sister. We served in the Borlaug Youth Institute together. Chris just loved young people. He took a personal interest in them. Chris would be there meeting people at a very personal level, introducing me to many and was always full of great things to say about people. He downplayed his own virtues and strengths. He would move around unassumingly. Yet, Chris has seen it all and has been there right from the beginning of that prize by Dr Norman Borlaug, and has also made personal contributions to it, quietly.
On the other hand, if there was something he did not like, he said so. He was not afraid to disagree with someone on an issue, and he was not afraid to express his own view. He was fond of saying “Well, I accept although I do not agree”.
Chris was such fun to be around. He was so witty and full of jokes. I have learnt so much from him these last couple of years. I am a better person because of Chris. I used to tell him: Chris, even work, work deserves some rest time. I worried about his personal health. It was like he was married to SAA these last few years. Before it was loyalty 100% to Dr Norman Borlaug for over 31 years and now it was total commitment to the same cause. I always wondered whether Chris ever got over Norm’s passing. Almost every other sentence from his mouth mentioned Norm. It was like Norm was always whispering something to him. Such loyalty is unprecedented. He made personal sacrifices to serve Norm. I often felt loneliness in him, a deep one, whenever he mentioned Norm.
Chris was an institutional memory and could vividly remember events, dates and people with exceptional clarity. He wrote well, he communicated well and he was timely and right on target.
Chris had a passion for Africa and cared so much about making things better for the hungry children and the struggling smallholder farmers of Africa, especially women.
 Chris in a Malian Village, with the Village Chief in Nov. 2011 |
For 4 years, Chris worked tirelessly to turn around the SAA prompted by requirements of the BMGF for project funding. This process wore him off because Chris wanted to get it right. He liked everything to be perfect. It required many frequent trips between the USA, Mexico and Africa and occasionally Japan. BUT, it worked. We got into place systems that are acceptable to any donor, focused on only 4 countries: Mali, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Uganda and Chris was so proud that SAA is 90% Africanised, and has 40% women on its workforce, with a woman General Manager ( Dr Juliana Rwelamira from Tanzania) and a woman Chair of the Board and each country managed by a National.
In Mali we spent a whole week together, from October 30 to November 6, 2011 and bonded quite a bit, all of us. I spent a lot of time with Chris. I felt he had a premonition and kept talking of death, and even told me: “Ruth you know I am going to die before you”. Then I would say: “Chris, you cannot die yet, we have work to do; what would be SAA without you? Remember you brought me in to work with you!
Then I would tell him to just move over to Africa since he loved the continent so much and most of his work was here and he had many of us in Africa who loved him and cared for him, and that these long trips across the Atlantic were taking their toll on his health.
In Mali, Chris was already planning where we would have our next Borlaug symposium and was travelling to Nigeria to firm it up when he fell sick on the plane. I will share the message he sent out as his personal recollection of the events. Please see below, after this tribute.
Chris often talked of his family. In Mali, Chris would show a sudden sadness on his face; well he had just lost his father and he now worried about his 90 year- old mother back in Colorado. To myself I would say: well, since both his parents have lived to such ripe old age, the same would surely apply to Chris. But again he would say: “You know I am diabetic and I do not eat well, I do not exercise enough and I have had a triple heart by pass, so I am going to die soon Ruth”.
After Des Moines, in October 2011 Chris and I travelled to Seattle where we had appointments at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Those of us who have interacted with the Foundation know how busy everyone there is. Both Chris and I felt extremely welcome, as upto the Senior officers made time to hold discussions with us and to listen to the progress of the project they have funded for us in Ethiopia. I let Chris do most of the talking as after all he had negotiated the grant and knew it inside out, he was Executive Director for programs and therefore overall overseer of the Project, and Chris too loved talking about these issues with great passion. He also gave his own views about their own strategy. They listened, they appreciated and they asked questions and even put on a dinner event for us. We felt good about this visit. We had fun.
On our last day in Seattle, Chris had breakfast with his niece, a lovely young lady, who lives in Seattle. He looked very happy with her. That was a side of Chris I had not seen before; I was happy for him.
Our last day in Mali, November 6, 2011, we spent most of the day at Dr. Abou Berthe’s Tabasky Party. Chris had joined Abou that morning for Muslim prayers. Chris liked to join his friends for prayers in their own Churches or Holy Houses. He did the same in Des Moines before travelling to Seattle.
 At Dr. Abou Berthe’s home in Mali on November 6, 2011. Abou( Country Director SAA Mali) |
Well, Chris is gone but his spirit lives on. To his family I say “THANK YOU SO MUCH for sharing him with the world, with us. May you take solace in believing that he is in a better place, a place with no worries and a place with no heart aches, and hopefully he has reunited with his dad.
Cheers and Goodbye my friend Chris.
Ruth, SAA Board Chair, and Chris’ personal friend,
Chris shared the message below with some of us in SAA
From: Chris Dowswell <chris@saa-safe.org>
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 07:29:40 -0600
To: Roy Steiner <Roy.Steiner@gatesfoundation.org>
Conversation: Valerie Nkamgang Bemo
Subject: Valerie Nkamgang Bemo
Dear Roy,
Greetings from Bamako, where I have just been released from the hospital. Last Tuesday, I was on my way to Nigeria on ASKY airlines (Ethiopian). We had given Valerie and Joy a ride to the airport since we were flying on the same puddle jumper (they were getting off in Accra; me in Lagos). I went back to my seat and was in the process of sitting down and that’s all I remember. I passed out and was completely unconscious. The next thing I remember was Valerie saying, “Christopher, can you hear me?). I was still pretty disoriented but then I saw her, and all the paramedics. I had an oxygen mask on. She had performed CPR on me and brought me back to life. She thought I had a heart attack, and she may be right, although the cardiologist here says no, just very low blood pressure and heart beat, probably due to the excessive number of medicines I take after my triple bypass heart surgery in 2009. I was taken off the airplane and put in an ambulance of sorts and rushed to a clinic, sirens wailing. The driver damn near killed me with all the bumps and jerks. The clinic was very Spartan, but the cardiologist seemed competent. The Malians are so kind. For three days I have had ECG daily and also one ultra sound. My pulse is back up above 60 (it was below 40), my blood pressure is normal, my blood sugar is where it should be. The doctor still stands by his diagnosis. All I have to do now is rest, lose 10 kg, and exercise, he says.
I wanted you and friends at BMGF to know because without her (she says God, to which I concur), I might not be here today. We never even met before the recent Seattle trip. Coincidence that she was on the same plane. Coincidence that she is a medical doctor. Maybe, maybe not. But I am deeply, deeply grateful. She is my sister for life.
I hope to be on my way back to Mexico tonight on Air France. I will see my doctors there. I think I might tell a little white lie with Air France and say I was in a car accident, since I have some bruises on my chest to add validity, as I fear the crew might not let me on the plane, given the commotion I made last time I boarded a plane in Bamako.
Valerie is my hero, although she dismisses my praise.
Fondly,
Chris
