Michael D. Lyman



Mike in 1971
 Mike currently lives in Maryland, since returning from Mozambique in '04

Sidenote from webmaster: Michael was awarded the University of Texas El Paso Alumni Association Distinguished Alumni Award. The Gold Nugget Award is sponsored by the UTEP Alumni Association and awarded by each of the academic colleges to an outstanding alum. Capt. Lyman received his award from the College of Health Sciences and traveled from Mozambique for the presentation.

Comments from Mozambique:

December 2002 ~ It finally got hot two days ago, & I'm having a difficult time getting in the Christmas spirit, even though my wife put up Christmas decorations this weekend. We've been in the southern hemisphere before for Christmas, & each time it doesn't feel quite right!!

I'm basically enjoying Mozambique & am having a good time learning Portuguese. The country has the most fantastic beaches & is definitely an up & coming country in Africa!

September 2002 ~ This is a pretty great place. We (wife, boys ages 10 & 12) have been here since mid-July. There's lots of challenges, but also excitement, change of pace, etc.

I'm learning to speak Portuguese & very much enjoying it. It can be nerve wracking to try to operate in another language for a long time. I get really worn out by it. I've been through it with several other languages, & like how much it contributes to my enjoyment of being somewhere.

I'm here with a CDC HIV/AIDS program. We do all kinds of things to try to reduce the disease, primarily working through the Ministry of Health. I should be here for two or three years, & if things go well, we could extend for another.

May 2002 ~ In January I accepted a job in Mozambique, Africa doing HIV / AIDS work. I just returned Thursday from a month away from home, with 3 of the weeks in Africa. The other week was with CDC in Atlanta for whom I'll be working. I will remain an officer in the US Public Health Service so am only really changing work assignments. It looks like it will be a good situation for me & my family. My boys are 10 & 12 & are a bit hesitant, but so far they're being good troopers about continuing to satisfy Dad's wanderlust. My wife Donna is looking forward to it, though we're all certainly a bit nervous.

It will be a two year assignment, beginning July. The embassy has located a house for us & everything will be pretty comfortable, etc. There are game parks nearby in South Africa & fantastic beaches, snorkeling, etc in the area. I'm excited & looking forward to the change. It certainly is much more difficult now having a family, but I strongly feel that it is important for them to have different experiences & feel comfortable in different situations.



Mike (left) with family and Colin Campbell

BIO As of January 2, 2003:

I have been married for 16 years to Donna (formerly Donna Kochis of Akron, OH) whom I met while living in rural Alaska. Donna & I have two healthy sons, now aged 11 & 12. Having the boys has certainly made changes in my life, as all of us with children have likely experienced. I have learned an improved sense of patience & a tolerance of the unexpected. Both of these "skills" come directly from parenting!!

My work is as a career officer in the US Public Health Service, one of the uniformed services of the federal government. Donna & I are both nurses, however neither of us has done much clinical work with patients recently. Donna is mostly at home with the boys, which has seriously simplified our lives.

We have lived in several places: Alaska (where we met while we both were providing health care to Eskimos in a remote area); Sudan (where we did refugee work); San Antonio (where I returned to school for a year); West Virginia (where I worked for CDC); Armenia (where I worked for CDC); the Baltimore / Washington area (where I worked on health issues between the US & other western hemisphere countries), & now Mozambique (where I'm on a CDC HIV/AIDS project for the next couple years).

A major love of mine is travel, which I try to do fairly often & hopefully am passing the love of travel on to my sons. So far that seems to be working, as the boys seem to enjoy being dragged around to various places, both on & off the "beaten track."

I am also fairly adept at learning languages, which sure makes travels easier & more fun. I have been pretty decent in Spanish for many years, which has helped me in learning other languages. I originally learned Spanish while attending nursing school in El Paso. Over the years I have learned & used Yupik Eskimo, Italian, French, & Russian. Unfortunately, I need to use these to maintain them. Mozambique is a Portuguese-speaking country, & I am working hard at being comfortable in speaking it. Both fortunately & unfortunately, it is rather close to Spanish, which makes for many similar rules. However, I've learned the hard way that expecting a word to be used in a certain way because it is done that way in Spanish doesn't work & can have unexpected consequences. I'm very pleased to have some facility at learning languages. This is quite a change from how I left high school where I had a terrible time getting a "C" grade in Spanish & thought I had a block against languages.