- The community building. I am amazed by how amazed I am by my peers that I will be traveling with. I have never been surrounded by 30 people who are filled with the same passion I am to learn about health and inequalities and then do something about it. I am no star in this crowd. I have friends who have volunteered in Tanzania, Kenya, China, disability camp, South Africa, Mexico, cities all over the US, and beyond. I can learn so so so much from everyone I am surrounded by, and that is absolutely exhilarating. That obviously means that this could be a very intense experience. Luckily I have found a few friends I already know I can truly let it all down and laugh with. One of those friends is Ari who has been in my room in the hostel with me. She is a sociology major at Bates, and we have many of the same dilemmas and life crazinesses. She has been a buffer for me.
- The Long Island Homeless Shelter run by the Boston City Health Commission. This place is amazing. It is out on an island across from Boston (about 30 min from downtown). The buildings were originally used as a TB sanitarium, then were used for a hospital for the chronically ill, and are now home to a 400-bed emergency shelter to which people are bussed from the city, transitional housing for mostly people who have substance abuse problems, a job-training program which trains people in such things as maintenance, culinary arts, and the like. The people that worked there were all amazing. I am constantly overwhelmed by how many driven, positive, people exist in this world to do good.
- Yeshe coming to visit. I had the weekend off from my nine-to-five "job", and Yeshe came out for one last goodbye. It was nice to see someone from my other world before embarking out into this new world. As much as I am going to melt into this experience, I know it will be crucial for me to maintain communication with my loved ones so that I don't come back utterly lost. I want to know the exciting and the mundane from all of you!
- Encounters with amazing speakers. While I would say that many of the experts we heard from gave rather one-sided views, they were views that were good to hear for me. I would say that it would have been nice for a few less talks, so as to have a bit more time to think, but overall I feel very lucky. I have so many contacts at the Boston University school of Public Health if I ever want to come here. I think the thing that has hit me most from all my learning these past two weeks is "the culture of biomedicine". I had never really thought of biomedicine as a culture, it was a given norm of my life. To dissect the process of becoming a doctor and to understand the rituals and enculturation that goes into producing a doctor really flipped my view of what is normal. Why is it normal to go to a hospital and be surrounded by professionals dressed in blue when you have a baby? Why does it seem weird to have your baby in your own home? This is one of many realizations I have had so far, and I look forward to working through these questions throughout the next few months.
I think that is all I am going to go in to for now. The next time you hear from me I will be in India. It's kind of crazy, but oh so exciting!
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