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FORTUNE.COM // MAY.1.19
ment had pulled out all the stops in welcom-
ing 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 cap-
ture 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.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 mo-
ment,” 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 con-
nect 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 govern-In Dhaka,
Bangladesh,
the govern-
ment went all
out to welcome
the Gateses,
recalls a friend.
The couple just
wanted to spend
time listening to
the people.CO
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GFT.W.05.01.19.XMIT.indd 47 4/17/19 6:00 PM