This evening I shook the hand of the 19th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who was appointed by President Obama and just completed his four year term in April this year. After connecting with him briefly on the idea of clinicians moving beyond patient care and into public health advocacy and …
Category: Thoughts
On the road again…
I'm perched on the precipice of another prodigious transition. I left Tanzania almost three months ago, and have been home in Colorado for a glorious six weeks. Now I sit soaking up some high altitude sun before setting off on a two week road trip that will land me in Boston, MA at the end …
Story time..
As my time winds down to the final couple days here in Mugumu and at the Safe House, I find I have several topical blog posts I'd like to write, but little current motivation to do so. So instead I feel inclined to simply share some stories and thoughts of the past several weeks before my volunteer …
Questions: The SST experience
Flipping through my SST journal from six years ago has helped to add some perspective to my current experiences in Tanzania. I'm actually impressed with my 20-21 year old self's analysis and introspection, and I'm surprised by the threads that run through that writing and my current experience. As I've stated before, I love questions. …
Ngazi kwa ngazi..
Level by level, rung by rung, step by step, little by little. A Kiswahili phrase I learned from the local Maasai boy who was basically my personal guide up Raspberry Hill and down to the Themi Hills waterfall. A phrase I often pair with another popular Swahili saying: pole pole meaning slowly. These concepts are very familiar …
Some things are easy…
Waking up to a car horn blaring some 50 feet from my bedroom window or listening to a dog fight outside our gate at 3am are common occurrences that fall under the label "extremely frustrating." I have been harboring a lot of frustrations lately. Things that get under my skin that are simply a part …
My reason for the season part 2…
I am sitting in a local cafe working on the computer, listening to Christmas music, pondering the count down until Dec 25th, and sweating from the warm air a fan insists on assaulting me with. It's the first day of winter! Formal work at V4Y closed down last week until January, so I have enjoyed relaxing …
“Nothing about us without us is for us..
Youth are the solution not the problem!" This slogan sat proudly on the backs of each kid and drew my thoughts for much of the youth camp. A strong call for youth to be active agents for change within their country and communities, and a reciprocal call for the society to intentionally involve youth societal change, planning, and …
Wired for connection..
"How does it feel to have internet access at your house? Handy? Too distracting? A nice balance?" - Jessie My goal for this trip was to write a blog post a week. I wanted to keep people updated without writing gobs of emails, and I wanted to spend intentional time on my writing. I had …
From point A to point B..
Daladalas are everywhere and they're cheep. But each mode of transport here has its pros and cons: For 5x the price of a daladala I can get to the town center on a bodaboda (paid motorcycle) in 1/3rd the time, with 10x the fun, 1/4th the walking, 5x the exhaust/dust, 1/7th the swetty discomfort, 4.5x …