What is unique about doing international work? I'll start with the personal level. Many of the issues that you deal with cut across national boundaries. Your perspective on the problem is enriched when you see it, you see how the context may shape the problem to some extent, but in many ways these are common issues. And it deepens your perspective.

Other people, given their culture, their background, their histories, may look upon these issues in very different ways. To some extent, it expands our horizons, it expands the perspectives that we will bring by seeing how other people view the same issues. If you take the issue of education, and it's a major issue in the United States, trying to improve the quality.

How do we educate, for example, a multi-lingual population, children who come not speaking English? Well, this is a problem that's been addressed, no doubt been struggled over, in many other countries, but they often see it in very different terms.

I think there's a value to us in expanding our perspective on the very problems we hope to solve. The other thing is it's very rewarding personally. I would now say that some of my best friends, really, are in Africa, and it's been developed on the basis of the work I've done there. I've always felt very welcomed.

It's like my horizons, my physical world, has expanded. I now feel very comfortable in many parts of Africa on the basis of the work that I've done, so it's led to my own personal growth as well.