"To begin with, there was the malaria. I had been in Gabon in the Peace Corps, where my job was to help people improve their nutrition and access potable water. I helped design and implement a water filtration system and was in the midst of building a community center with a large kitchen and a bare-bones medical clinic. I swam with hippos, danced myself, with thirty others, into a trance state, read a lot of Ian Fleming novels, and lost almost twenty pounds."