I love bread! Whenever someone asks me whats my favourite food, I am always quick to say rice and beans – but the truth is that when I am eating bread, I realize – wow, this is my best food (of course, I feel it would be weird to say its my best food…) and I love it in all aspects – with honey, battered or plain. My other love is samosas – these two (i will call them snacks) have remained my specialties in life to-date.
However, my story of these 2 loves dates several years back to when I was a child living with my grandparents in the village then, now pretty modernized for my child memory and recognition. Given our circumstances and the food we used to have, such snacks were rare to have except when you escorted grandma to the farm – thereon from the hard work she would be obligated to buy this break (snacks- thats if it was your blessed day!). I thus would look forward on such occasions of accompanying grandma despite the long journey because I looked at the prospect on those rare occasions when she would perhaps buy samosas. However, much of the journey back home would be tiring as I would carry a sack of potatoes home, balanced on my head, to cook that night. We would then sit in a circle around a mat and watch gradma mix the source there and then- grinding eggplants, adding water and salt- then serve it on each plate and have us pray before picking the food from the middle banana fibred banquette, where we would be expected to peel the boiled potatoes with our fingers or perhaps she’d advise us that it’s healthier to eat them with the peels. I did not look forward to the breakfast, as the escort (tea accompaniment) would have to be the previous nights’ potatoes or cassava or something similar. On few occasions she would be intrigued to buy bread especially when we had visitors at home- perhaps this produced my first love for bread. And perhaps this is because it was kind of a snack after a longtime serving of similar meals.
However, my sorrow was short lived with the coming of aunt Jane! She was a hardworking lady and a family breadwinner who visited often from town. In all of my childhood and lifetime I have never looked forward to a visit as much as hers. Because she would bring as many snacks as she could. All we had to do was eagerly watch out for white car blowing dust on the village road then would scramble for the trunk, full of snacks- I would only look for something white and soft, hug it to my chest and run inside the house(the rest would be history). This was a rare occasion were we would get at least 3 loaves and grandma made them last to the max! Life would turn magic for the family and especially for me when aunt Jane was home (well even if only for a 1 day visit, it would last 2 or 3 weeks).
However, just like an abrupt star that appeared for the family, it also happened to be an abrupt disappearance of this amazing star. Sometimes joy does not last long and I have wondered why…. As such, this one time when a white car came home and we tried to scramble for the trunk, we found it was quite rare- a different open trunk from the accustomed and instead of the usual snacks packed, were all these many people seated behind and in the middle with a long brown box of wood.
This huge piece of wood which had replaced my snacks was carried inside the house and placed in the middle of the sitting room… and then all these noises started that I found myself joining in with for unknown reasons . Then I began to understand that I was experiencing death for the very first time but did not fully realize it. The sarcophagus was opened and my grandma called me along with my cousins to wash my aunty’s face and bid her farewell. I was freaked out and wanted to scream at what I saw, a horror figure not smiling from the normal. Grandma, knowing my fears, reassured me then and told me to put this imagination away and remember the smiling beautiful aunt Jane I had last seen a few months back. This went pretty well with me and I did as instructed.
However, that was also the perfect moment for my mom who pulled me in the corner without smiling and with a stony face and said the harshest words I have had in life: “Your beloved aunt you see there died of AIDs; AIDs kills anyone who messes up their life. If you grow up and mess up your life you will die like your aunt.” My mother loved aunt Jane very much and her harsh words were not to disrespect her but to give me a harsher perspective of how serious she was and scared for me to be careful with my life. It then hit me death was real and it had happened. My mother never explained to me what AIDs was. I was even too scared to ask for the explanation- and we have never had any discussion about AIDs in life since that time. But for me it remained a component of my life- perhaps because it had deprived me of my snack that it kept to be a constant reminder and bell ringer?
This component followed me throughout life. I kept increasingly to hear about this strange disease, for some reason I would curiously participate in everything involving this disease. This ranged from my primary school music and drama to high school – joining Anti-AIDS clubs, singing with vigor that my friends would ask “why in heavens of all club I had to join the AIDS clubs and groups? There were other prestigious clubs. Was I sick or something?” This happened at a time when people were getting more educated about the disease with a lot of stigma existing those days. I would say I don’t know but I think its good- not to mention I get a chance to even leave boarding school for a while and check out other places with little competition (yes seriously it was an added advantage too as I enjoyed every bit of participating at different functions with less peer competition like other clubs). However, from the dramas we got to participate in outside school, I got to hear experiences of people with the disease and it even touched me more that it was a blessing to hear- for at that time I began to pretty understand the disease itself. The urge to involve further in this disease expanded my interest in health to the level where I wanted to become a doctor to this day-well which never became (but thanks to GHC I have been very humbly privileged to have even a sneak pick participation in health that I can be proud of for the rest of my life…). My mama in later years asked me what I wanted to become and she was pretty surprised (not knowing it was partly her harsh educative plea words and for the love of aunt Jane a drive to lend a hand to millions out there in the fight of eradicating this disease and other health aspects) but with excitement she prayed for my success.
However, my full realisation of why I was involved in HIV/AIDs and the global health movement became more articulate when during my GHC interview, when I was abruptly asked a random question of why I wanted to get involved in global health. It was then when I was able to articulate my journey from my childhood to that point which even to my own surprise summed up why I was there and today that I am involved in the global health movement. And today, I am more than glad that my past one year experience as a GHC fellow working in the health sector as a Distance Learning Consultant at the Infectious Disease Institute (IDI) – Makerere University has contributed to achieving my long term dream that I am privileged to have contributed to a greater community of towards healthcare delivery services through the skills trainings as a team we have provided to 1000s of healthcare professionals that they are able to pass on to the millions of patients especially the friends family ( people living with HIV/AIDS). This experience combined with my surrounding community, family, friends, healthcare professionals, co-fellow, IDI colleagues and GHC community makes me to be so humbled and grateful for the community of people that have crossed my life this year leaving permanent rosy footprints to be grateful for, for the rest of my life.
Well, some of you have been blessed to articulate your journey of why you are in the global health at an earlier stage, while others like me have just articulated their journey but required that intriguing question of “Why” while for others you are yet to articulate your journey. For me it was during that GHC final interview that I was able to articulate my journey with a “Why“ question after years of being part of my life but blurred- all the way from my childhood to a snack love to escorting my grand to the garden to looking forward to aunt Jane visits to the pleading harsh words of my mother that drove me to global health movement.
However, its still a journey for all of us- that as we go out in the world after this fellowship, for some may still need to follow their articulated journey, while others may feel it was a different journey they took needing a change and others may feel that they have arrived and can move forward on a newer journey to gain another experience of life’s contributions. And as you conclude your GHC fellowship year, 2012-2013-whatever your journey may be, go out there with the confidence and that you will articulate where your journey fits best- but where ever your journey may lead you, remember in whatever you do or decide to do, even as future global leaders- you can be able to turn it around based on your past one year experience to still contribute to the global health movement towards a world of social justice and health equity for all…