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雷·钱伯斯是一位很有影响力的美国慈善家，现在担任世界卫生组织全球战略大使，也曾担任联合国秘书长疟疾问题特使数年。他说，盖茨对全球医疗领域不管什么“问题的热情”，以及“对病患的同情”都很强烈。医生海琳·盖尔曾在盖茨基金会工作五年，负责艾滋病、结核病和生殖健康计划，现任芝加哥社区信托公司首席执行官。她特别指出“坚定”一词，认为“该描述并不准确，太缺乏想象力。实际上应该是介于坚定和热情之间。盖茨这个人肩负使命，而且‘无所畏惧’”。
如果你想知道如此长久的热情动力何在，主要原因其实藏在基金会的名字里，不过是除了盖茨的另一部分：梅琳达·盖茨。
如果说比尔的超能力是敢于向强权说真话，梅琳达的超能力可能倾听弱者的心声，而且能消化并分享秘密，往往都是残酷压抑的智慧。她语气温和，却又如教堂钟声一样振聋发聩。了解她的人都说她真正不可思议的本领其实是倾听的能力。
梅琳达今年54岁，曾在盖茨基金会工作的盖尔回忆起2000年代初与梅琳达前往印度，会见了受到艾滋病毒影响严重的群体，都是从事性交易的女性。梅琳达像往常一样，坐在地板上倾听。“他们当中许多人常年受周围人们轻视和羞辱，”盖尔回忆说，“她静静听在场女性讲述自己的故事，了解她们的生活，为什么沦落到用性换取基本的生存，还有外界人的倾听，听她们的故事，愿意拥抱她们，按照正常人的尊严平等对待她们意味着什么，当时的场景非常非常感人，”她说。
在莫桑比克情况也一样。盖茨夫妇前往偏远的农村地区，听当地妇女谈论对子女的期望，“以及对无法供养照顾子女的担忧，” 盖尔说。“梅琳达会坐在地上，跟女性谈论母亲关心的事情。她就是有跟每个人联系起来的超凡能力。”
洛克菲勒基金会的首席执行官拉吉·沙赫也曾在盖茨基金会工作，经常与创始人一起旅行，但有一次比较特别：2005年12月前往孟加拉。政府竭尽所能欢迎这对著名的夫妇到访达卡，还把巨大的两人头像贴在机场路边广告牌上。然而，盖茨夫妇只想参观著名的国际腹泻病研究中心，或者人们常说的“霍乱医院”。
该医院成立于20世纪60年代，在帮助腹泻儿童生存的研究方面成果颇丰。“当时，”沙赫回忆说，“爆发了霍乱，我们也正好路过。不知道你见没见过霍乱病床，都比较高，中间有个洞，上面有蓝色的防水布，原因很明显。”每张小床上睡一个孩子。“孩子们不停腹泻，”沙赫说。“病床下放着水桶接排泄物。母亲坐在孩子旁边，不停地喂口服液，一般是加盐和其他电解质的纯净水。”这种叫ORS的口服液可以防止孩子在腹泻期间脱水甚至死亡。
梅琳达坐在一位母亲旁边，帮忙用勺子喂孩子。这两位女性一个出生在达卡，另一个出生在达拉斯的中产阶级家庭，通过翻译谈论晚饭吃的东西。就在那一刻，沙赫意识到梅琳达真的能做到跟任何人建立联系。他在谈话中停顿了片刻：“我记得可能不够准确。但我只记得她说：‘哦，我家里人也吃了米饭和豆子！’她就是这样，人们能以很特别的方式跟她产生联系。” Ray Chambers, an influential American philanthropist who is now the World Health Organization’s Ambassador for Global Strategy and who for several years served as a UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Malaria, says Gates’ “passion for the subject”—whatever that might be in global health—“and his compassion for the victim” are equally striking. Physician Helene Gayle, who spent five years with the Gates Foundation, overseeing its HIV, TB, and reproductive health programs and who is now CEO of The Chicago Community Trust, singles out the word “determined” before saying, “that’s not quite right—that’s too pedestrian. It’s somewhere between determined and passionate. I mean this guy is on a mission, and he is—the word is ‘undeterred.’ ”
And if you’re wondering what drives this perpetually refueling zeal, a big part of the answer can be found on the other side of the ampersand in his foundation’s name: ¬Melinda Gates.
If Bill’s superpower is speaking truth to the mighty, Melinda’s may well be hearing the truth of the unmighty—and then internalizing and sharing that secret, often brutally repressed wisdom. For a generally soft-toned speaker, her voice has the command of a church bell. But those who know her say her truly uncanny talent is simply the ability to listen.
Gayle recalls one trip with Melinda, now 54, and Bill in the early 2000s to India, meeting with a group that was particularly hard-hit by HIV, women in the commercial sex industry. Melinda—as was often the case—sat on the floor with the women and listened. “Many of them were despised and stigmatized in their own communities,” recalls Gayle, “and having her listen to these women’s stories and hear the lives that they led—why they ended up having to trade sex for basically survival, and what it meant to them to have people from outside come and listen to them, listen to their stories, be willing to hug and embrace them, and treat them like human beings with equal value—was a very, very moving moment,” she says.
In Mozambique, it was the same. The ¬Gateses would travel to a remote rural area, talking with women about their desires for their children—“and their fears that they wouldn’t be able to provide for their children and care for them,” says Gayle. “And Melinda would sit on the ground, talking woman to woman about the things that mothers care about. She has this remarkable ability to connect with everybody.”
Raj Shah, the CEO of the Rockefeller Foundation, has likewise worked at the Gates Foundation and traveled frequently with its founders, but there is one trip that stands out: Bangladesh, December 2005. The government had pulled out all the stops in welcoming the famous couple to Dhaka, putting their giant faces on billboards lining the highway from the airport. The Gateses, however, just wanted to visit the famous International Center on Diarrheal Disease Research—or, as everyone called it, the “Cholera Hospital.”
Established in the 1960s, the hospital had long been a pinnacle of research on ways to help children with diarrhea survive. “At the time,” recalls Shah, “there was a cholera outbreak, and we were walking through. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a cholera cot, but basically it’s a raised cot with a hole in the middle, and they have a blue tarp over it, for obvious reasons.” On each cot was a child. “And the kids just have constant diarrhea,” says Shah. “There are buckets under the cot to capture all that. And the mothers sit next to their kids and constantly give them a combination of oral rehydration, salts mixed with purified water and some other electrolytes.” That ORS, as it’s called, keeps the child from dehydrating and dying during the diarrheal episode.
Melinda sat down beside one mother and began helping to spoon-feed her child, as the two women—one born in Dhaka; the other, in a middle-class home in Dallas—talked through a translator about what they ate for dinner. It was a moment when Shah realized that Melinda could bond with anyone. He pauses for a moment in the conversation: “I could be wrong in all my recollections. But I just remember her saying that ‘Oh, my family ate rice and beans also!’ It’s just who she is: People connect with her in a very special way.” |
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