Live it and Love it: The Thrill that Comes with Compassion
It is a tradition in many cultures to help one another and to express love and kindness in times of good and bad. These cultures have evolved from handing over gifts like chicken, goats and other material gifts to now the much talked about funding of projects in the developing world – in other words […]
No Problem Exists in a Vacuum
A colleague made a fascinating comment during a meeting the other day. Deep in my post-Taco Thursday food coma, I did not process his words until long after. “Under staffing is protective in one sense: [they] do not have the resources to pay everyone if the facility was fully staffed.” This blew me away (once […]
The Journey to Genuine Social Justice
My vision is to see myself in a place where I am able to make an impact on more people’s lives. Let’s all aim at being in a position where we are able to freely express ourselves and see ourselves really taking part in what we are supposed to be doing! Never be a “ghost” […]
Stack of Pencils
One weekend, I was sitting in the small living room of my equally small house. I was feeling a little down reflecting on how my fellowship year was turning out after four months. Things were not going as I had expected; at this juncture, job satisfaction and morale were generally low, not only on my […]
Global Health Corps and the Human Capital Challenge
In my last post, I talked about becoming—slowly and not always successfully—a more patient person as a result of living in Rwanda. To most, this probably seems like a good thing. Patience is a virtue after all. However, looking at this change from an economic perspective, the shift can be explained by a depressing phenomenon: […]
Little Things Count
“It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen” – John Wooden The previous night, hardly 6 hours before, all bubbly, energetic, dancing, almost drunk. 5:30 am, my roommate now writhing in pain, a splitting headache, chills, a fever, malaise and joint pains… a diarrhea so vile… Hours on and it […]
In Appreciation of Human Kindness
In a nutshell, my GHC experience has been incredibly AWESOME. It has been filled with both professional and personal gains. Coming into the program I yearned to be a part of a community of like-minded people who are actually doing something towards social justice – not because they are paid for it or because its […]
Waging a War Against Gender Inequity
“Imagine if blood spilled by women in childbirth, unpaid labor & violence against them collectively mattered like war.” On May 3rd , ‘Women Under Siege’ retweeted this post written by a woman named Lauren Wolfe; she is a perfect stranger to me, but these 140 characters shook me. Maybe, I thought, we were looking at […]
What to expect when you’re not expecting: Reflections from Boston
“I shouldn’t tell you this, but I don’t even know who our safety captain is,” I told a GHC staff member over the phone as I “sheltered in place” in my boyfriend’s room in Cambridge, MA last Friday. At our initial orientation at Yale, we were grouped by our placement countries to discuss emergency plans and […]
My Friend Tina*
I was thinking of what ode to infectious diseases and health I could write this time around. Instead, I’m going to write about my friend Tina*. I met Tina one evening while working at the Mulago Hospital site of the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI). She worked one of the evening cleaning shift. Whenever I saw […]