What brought me to Africa

Originally written on 7/1/2010 on a plane

I'm on my way to London then Nairobi and eventually Tanzania. It is so nice having a spare minute since the last few days have been so intense. I feel this nervous rush and am surprised that I'm awake after having little to no sleep for 3 days straight. I just can't believe that the day that I have been dreaming about since I was 16 is finally here. Here is my chance to travel to Africa and engage in meaningful work. I think its funny that I've traveled internationally before, but have not been this anxious.

I can't help but reflect on the circumstances that motivated me to travel to an impoverished rural village, design a public health intervention, and live in the area for a large part of the summer. I suppose it all began with TV. I think that a majority of the population is able to watch depressing news and move on unlike myself. When I was a teenager I started becoming aware of disadvantaged populations and the realities of the world, especially what is portrayed in the media about poverty in Africa. It was only recently in my masters program that I learned about the extent of income inequalities in the U.S. and the world. I started to wonder how is that those of us in richer nations are able to spend more money on a single purse than a family of 6 earns in a third world country. Was there a conscious decision somewhere in history to determine that Americans nowadays succumb to deaths due to lifestyle choices such as poor eating habits leading to chronic diseases while starvation is still an issue in some countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, it is normal for a mother to have a child die in her lifetime; in fact, its almost expected that their baby will die due to diarrheal diseases, malaria, or parasites by the age of 5. Can you realistically imagine accepting this as a norm?

I think that my motivation to first-handedly work with developing countries stems from my perceptions of social injustice and simply how we are all humans and yet our lives are not valued fairly. To introduce my project for those that do not already know, I am traveling to Shirati, Tanzania to complete a research study on mosquito net usage in the village. Dr. Mull is my advisor as well as a USC professor and physician. He founded the SHED Foundation (Shirati Health, Education, Development Foundation) and graciously allowed me to travel with his group of med students this summer to Tanzania. The USC Institute for Global Health is also funding part of my travel and research expenses, I am forever grateful or else I would not be able to afford to go. My dear friend, Melody, and I will be in Shirati for 5 weeks. We want to figure out whether or not education can encourage villagers to properly use nets. Millions of mosquito nets are distributed every year but some residents tend to use the nets for fishing, chicken fences, or wedding veils rather than their intended purpose. It makes sense though, if you were given antibiotics and were not told about how to use them or why you should, there is a high chance that you will either use them incorrectly or not at all. In addition to our house-to-house survey of net usage, Melody and I are planning a community intervention to diffuse this information village-wide. We brought a lot of coloring pages and crayons with net instruction images for the kids. We also want to ask community leaders how to encourage net use and demonstrate to the village proper net usage. I'll keep you updated on how it goes!