65: OP#8/Malawi: day 14 continued

My final task was to leave my written recommendations for the molar pregnancy with Dr Te Haal.  He was home and accepted them without comment, then asked if I had a few minutes.  Rainier explained that Dr. M. who had diagnosed the molar pregnancy probably would not be staying long in Nkhoma because better opportunities existed elsewhere in the country (my impression is that newly graduated physicians were required to spend a few years in rural areas).  He further explained that Dr. M. had expressed an interest in Ob-Gyn and might be accepted in a South African residency whose director was a friend of Dr Te Haal.   Dr M then might be enticed to return to Nkhoma if there were funds to supplement his government salary of about $700 per month.  $700 is fine for food and housing, but for cars, gas, computers, etc., it doesn't go very far.

We all know where Rainier was headed.  Could I talk with colleagues who together might collect funds to make all this happen?  I appreciate how difficult it is to ask for money.  If I hadn't come over with my notes, this conversation wouldn't have happened. It's obviously something he had thought about, but the opportunity just hadn't arisen.  It may have been just taking the happenstance of my coming over and the impending departure, or perhaps my interest in follow-up may have suggested that I would be a good candidate for this request.  In an event, I said I would think it over.  And I have.

To do this right, I would have to link with an existing non-profit (to make sure any donations were tax deductable), or even form my own foundation.  A friend of my neighbor was traveling in Vietnam and started a conversation with a cab driver who was an unemployed teacher.  One thing led to another, and now this friend returns regularly to VN to drill wells for villages without close and safe water supplies, using the driver as his local connection.  He started a non-profit to support this work.  Am I up to anything like this?