it's been almost three months since i've been back in the US and two weeks before the end of the quarter, i've taken some time for reflection. silly or not, my facebook statuses are generally a good reflection of how i'm feeling in the moment that they're posted. and they've overwhelmingly (noticeably so?) positive. that's a good sign... right?
a few weeks ago, a deeply cherished person looked at me in marvel, noting how much stronger i am now than i was before i left. the comment was not made in passing but rather was part of a much larger conversation predicated on my values and expectations. my response? "yeah. i'm a bad-ass." flippantly made to bring a smile to my partner's face, to break the tension, to be a brat... it was the first thing i could think of saying. but since that night, i've spent an incredible amount of time alone, wondering if that's true.
i have changed drastically. the six months in argentina were both the most trying and the happiest times of my life. i tried to pinpoint what made me so incredibly happy while i was gone and i realized that a LOT of it had to do with how carefree i was there. i was picky about the friends i made, i didn't do anything just because it was expected of me, i indulged myself, i explored my interests and found out how much i love things like architecture, i became fluent in spanish, i danced like no one was looking. all. the. time. (even though, looking as i do, everyone was looking. all. the. time.) i focused on learning instead of the grades. i formed new relationships, cut off old, unhealthy ones, focused in on what i want to do with my life and left the country hoping against all hope that everything i learned while i was gone would travel back with me.
in a lot of ways, i was very concerned that when i came back, everything would be the same but i'd be completely different and would have no idea how to integrate myself. instead, i found that the world moved on. i didn't reinsert myself into the same mold i was in before. everyone had moved on and i needed to find ways to place myself back where i belonged.
well. where did i belong? where do i belong?
like i mentioned earlier, i've been spending a lot of time alone. watching stupid TV shows, listening to a lot of music, writing and trying to make sense of everything in my life. am i supposed to reinsert myself into the roles i occupied before i left? or do i form new roles? though seemingly silly, this question has been pervading my return for the last 9 weeks.
and while i try to figure out how to bring the new me into an old situation, i am also battling the parts of the old me that are still around. the parts i hate about myself. the parts that didn't surface while i was gone because they didn't have any triggers (i.e. real life). for example, i am an incredibly insecure person. i don't peg myself to be particularly jealous but little things act as triggers and instead of sharing how i feel, i internalize it. i try not to be overbearing. i constantly monitor my actions and censor the things that come out of my mouth to ensure the comfort of everyone around me. but inherent in all this insecurity is a burial and denial of myself. if i'm constantly censoring myself, i'm not really being me, am i? and is that really the person that you want to be around? my catch-phrase has been to pick and choose my battles.
i'm struggling with a lot of things, and a lot of people, right now. and i've come to realize that there is no way to deal with everything, solve every problem, make everyone happy. i spread myself too thin, i take on others' burdens far too often, and i lose myself. and that frustrates me more than anything because what i achieved in the six months abroad was just that - i found myself. well... i began to find myself.
but then i come home and my worst fear comes true. i slip into the heydey of being home and the conscious decision-making that helped me develop as a person while i was abroad goes out the window and i lost myself. all.over.again.
"i'm just watching you make the bed and you're so much stronger than you were when you left."
am i, really? i want so desperately to say yes. and in all the moments that those positive statuses were written, i felt stronger. i felt happier. i felt like... like maybe i was finally taking control of the direction my life was moving in. but i have also come to realize that much of my happiness is predicated on external factors rather than internally produced. which was the impetus for my latest status... it truly is the people in your life that make life worth living. being with your love, surrounding yourself with friends, taking time out of each day to be appreciative of those who impact you.
the thing that scares me most about this happiness, though, is the fact that it is predicated on others. so what happens when/if they're not around anymore? does the happiness just disappear? or is this the point where the strength i thought/hoped/he noticed i had saves me from the fall out? where the positive attitude stays around anyway, reminding me that whenever one door closes, four more open? that moments of darkness can always be banished by other factors of good?
answers would be real nice right about now..
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Monday, November 7, 2011
afrodisiacos.
it's back, it's back! what you've all been waiting for -
pick up lines of the day: (and considering it's 9 am... i done good this morning (; )
1. el agua de la lluvia te hace bien
literal translation: water from the rain does you good.
real translation: like a flower blooms in the rain, so do you when it rains
*and considering it's monsoon season.. hehe (:
2. verte a vos es como ver la vida. por eso, voy a tener vida eterna.
translation: seeing you is like seeing life. because of this, i'm going to be immortal
3. phewwww. hace mucho calor, no? te afectará muchoo. sabes por que? porque los bonbons se derreten en el sol.
translation: it's really hot, isn't it? it's going to affect you a lot. know why? because chocolates melt in the sun.
heheh. this one was pretty smooth. because at 7:30 am, it was 27C (81F). so i actually thought he was talking about the weather. nopeee haha. and it's kind of cute and a lot less degrading for them to call you a sweet than any of the other things they come up with.
4. que estudias? oh, estudios internacionales? no no, solo que pensé que sos una maestra de jardineria porque todas las otras flores tienen que aprender de vos.
translation: what are you studying? oh, international studies? no no, i just thought that you were a gardening teacher because all the other flowers must learn from you.
hahahaa. i came home from mendoza [wine country!] this morning and the taxi driver through the chocolate one at me as we were pulling away from the terminal. when i told him i'd already heard that one, he took it as a challenge and started throwing me more piropos [flirtatious comments] to see if any would surprise me. these were the cutest (:
mendoza was absolutely, positively GORGEOUS. well, let's be real. every place i've visited in this country has been beautiful. the streets were all lined with trees, giving you much needed shade from the sweltering heat. it was clean like no other city i've seen in argentina. the plaza in the center had a gorgeous fountain and plenty of shade. when i got there on friday, i had quite a few hours to kill before my friends arrived. so i sat in the plaza with my gender and human rights course reading and people watched. what a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.
on saturday, i went on a wine tour with my friend, carly. our guide was the owner of the hostel we were staying at - a flemish-speaking belgian who also speaks german, english and spanish. (and his wife speaks spanish, french, flemish, english and portuguese. and their 4-year-old daughter speaks flemish, spanish and english. jeez, i just wanted to be that family. this is why europeans are infinitely more awesome than us. their language skills are incredible!)
we rented bikes from Mr. Hugo (literally, calls himself Mr. Hugo hahah) and biked through vineyards after vineyardss. we started at a wine museum where they employ four different kinds of wine making - the oldest version with old tools (wood and such) to the next two phases of concrete to the latest version of steel. then we went to a chocolate&licor factory where we had DELICIOUS olive-based pastes (there was one that was mustard and green olives. sounds disgusting but was probably the best spread i've ever tasted in my life. we still don't know why we didn't buy it...), homemade jams and chocolates. mmm. from there, we went to an outdoor garden to eat homemade pizzas and empanadas. yumm. (can you tell that i love food? hehe (: )
and thennn to another artisanal winery where they make a selected number of wines a year and in limited quantities but of excellent quality. there was supposed to be one more stop afterwards but the view was just way too gorgeous to leave the bodega. we must've stayed there for 2.5 hours. if you were there, you wouldn't have left either.
pick up lines of the day: (and considering it's 9 am... i done good this morning (; )
1. el agua de la lluvia te hace bien
literal translation: water from the rain does you good.
real translation: like a flower blooms in the rain, so do you when it rains
*and considering it's monsoon season.. hehe (:
2. verte a vos es como ver la vida. por eso, voy a tener vida eterna.
translation: seeing you is like seeing life. because of this, i'm going to be immortal
3. phewwww. hace mucho calor, no? te afectará muchoo. sabes por que? porque los bonbons se derreten en el sol.
translation: it's really hot, isn't it? it's going to affect you a lot. know why? because chocolates melt in the sun.
heheh. this one was pretty smooth. because at 7:30 am, it was 27C (81F). so i actually thought he was talking about the weather. nopeee haha. and it's kind of cute and a lot less degrading for them to call you a sweet than any of the other things they come up with.
4. que estudias? oh, estudios internacionales? no no, solo que pensé que sos una maestra de jardineria porque todas las otras flores tienen que aprender de vos.
translation: what are you studying? oh, international studies? no no, i just thought that you were a gardening teacher because all the other flowers must learn from you.
hahahaa. i came home from mendoza [wine country!] this morning and the taxi driver through the chocolate one at me as we were pulling away from the terminal. when i told him i'd already heard that one, he took it as a challenge and started throwing me more piropos [flirtatious comments] to see if any would surprise me. these were the cutest (:
mendoza was absolutely, positively GORGEOUS. well, let's be real. every place i've visited in this country has been beautiful. the streets were all lined with trees, giving you much needed shade from the sweltering heat. it was clean like no other city i've seen in argentina. the plaza in the center had a gorgeous fountain and plenty of shade. when i got there on friday, i had quite a few hours to kill before my friends arrived. so i sat in the plaza with my gender and human rights course reading and people watched. what a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.
on saturday, i went on a wine tour with my friend, carly. our guide was the owner of the hostel we were staying at - a flemish-speaking belgian who also speaks german, english and spanish. (and his wife speaks spanish, french, flemish, english and portuguese. and their 4-year-old daughter speaks flemish, spanish and english. jeez, i just wanted to be that family. this is why europeans are infinitely more awesome than us. their language skills are incredible!)
we rented bikes from Mr. Hugo (literally, calls himself Mr. Hugo hahah) and biked through vineyards after vineyardss. we started at a wine museum where they employ four different kinds of wine making - the oldest version with old tools (wood and such) to the next two phases of concrete to the latest version of steel. then we went to a chocolate&licor factory where we had DELICIOUS olive-based pastes (there was one that was mustard and green olives. sounds disgusting but was probably the best spread i've ever tasted in my life. we still don't know why we didn't buy it...), homemade jams and chocolates. mmm. from there, we went to an outdoor garden to eat homemade pizzas and empanadas. yumm. (can you tell that i love food? hehe (: )
and thennn to another artisanal winery where they make a selected number of wines a year and in limited quantities but of excellent quality. there was supposed to be one more stop afterwards but the view was just way too gorgeous to leave the bodega. we must've stayed there for 2.5 hours. if you were there, you wouldn't have left either.
 |
| can you blame us? |
and finally, we spent sunday en las termas (thermal water park) and got good tan time in.
suchh a beautiful way to spend the weekend and to top it off, i saw the sun rise over the mountains surrounding córdoba this morning as we were pulling in to the city. seemed like the perfect ending, indeed.
can i just stay here in this beauty forever?
Thursday, November 3, 2011
que sé yo.
digamos. sabes? viste? o sea. mira vos! ojo! no cierto.
last month, a mexican confused me for another mexican (something that happens often at home because of my skin color but certainly is not a common occurrence here) because of my accent and my vocabulary. last week, a brazilian confused me for an argentine. because of my vocabulary and the way i speak. and then again last night, by an argentine himself!
mira vos! (look at you!)
i kind of know for a fact that if the conversation had continued, they would have figured out pretty much immediately that i was very much a gringa foreigner. but in those precious minutes, i kind of felt like i was on top of the world (:
in the past few weeks, though i haven't been blogging, i've been doing a lot of writing. a whole heck of a lot of writing. and i realized that in coming here, i was running away from a lot of things back home but i was also running towards a time that i could use just for me, doing things just for me, things that make me happy without worrying [well, trying not to worry at least] about how this time will play into my future. at the top of that list was to learn a language that i'm absolutely in love with.
and after nearly four months here, to hear that i "manejo la lengua muy bien" [use the language well] makes my heart soar hehe.
of course, there are still a ton of things i need to learn. at the top of the list is vocabulary. i'm currently reading harry potter and the philospher's stone in spanish and even with a book i practically know by heart, i have to keep my handy dictionary by my side. even though it's slow reading, and at times incredibly frustrating, i keep trying to remind myself that it will all be worth it when one day, far far in the future, i can say i'm fluent in spanish. one day...
as the day for me to come home comes closer and closer [only 50 days left!] though, i'm starting to wonder if i'll have opportunities [and even more, if i'll take advantage of them] to use the language there. language is a fickle thing, indeed. and if you don't use it, you lose it. after all the work i've put in, i most certainly don't want to lose it. and i've also come to see that 6 months simply isn't enough to truly become fluent in a language. so this project i've embarked on - one of the few i'm doing purely for my own pleasure - will be a work-in-progress for the foreseeable future.
help me get there? (:
last month, a mexican confused me for another mexican (something that happens often at home because of my skin color but certainly is not a common occurrence here) because of my accent and my vocabulary. last week, a brazilian confused me for an argentine. because of my vocabulary and the way i speak. and then again last night, by an argentine himself!
mira vos! (look at you!)
i kind of know for a fact that if the conversation had continued, they would have figured out pretty much immediately that i was very much a gringa foreigner. but in those precious minutes, i kind of felt like i was on top of the world (:
in the past few weeks, though i haven't been blogging, i've been doing a lot of writing. a whole heck of a lot of writing. and i realized that in coming here, i was running away from a lot of things back home but i was also running towards a time that i could use just for me, doing things just for me, things that make me happy without worrying [well, trying not to worry at least] about how this time will play into my future. at the top of that list was to learn a language that i'm absolutely in love with.
and after nearly four months here, to hear that i "manejo la lengua muy bien" [use the language well] makes my heart soar hehe.
of course, there are still a ton of things i need to learn. at the top of the list is vocabulary. i'm currently reading harry potter and the philospher's stone in spanish and even with a book i practically know by heart, i have to keep my handy dictionary by my side. even though it's slow reading, and at times incredibly frustrating, i keep trying to remind myself that it will all be worth it when one day, far far in the future, i can say i'm fluent in spanish. one day...
as the day for me to come home comes closer and closer [only 50 days left!] though, i'm starting to wonder if i'll have opportunities [and even more, if i'll take advantage of them] to use the language there. language is a fickle thing, indeed. and if you don't use it, you lose it. after all the work i've put in, i most certainly don't want to lose it. and i've also come to see that 6 months simply isn't enough to truly become fluent in a language. so this project i've embarked on - one of the few i'm doing purely for my own pleasure - will be a work-in-progress for the foreseeable future.
help me get there? (:
Sunday, October 16, 2011
home is where the heart is.
and right now, my heart is in argentina.
today was día de madre (mother's day) and i bought my host mom a bottle of wine as a little token of appreciation for all that she's done for me in the past three months. it's funny how far a little thought goes because even though it was such a small token, she was so appreciative and kept telling me that it wasn't a necessary gift. the truth is that i didn't give it to her because it was necessary but rather because it was a small way to show her my appreciation and to let her know that i'm conscious of the role she plays in my life.
i went with my family to "our" grandmother's house for lunch. considerate as always, my wonderful sisters made vegetarian lasagna instead of using the traditional meat sauce (: and one of the women who takes care of abuela made canolis (think salty crepes stuffed with spinach&cheese or ham&cheese). even someone who doesn't know me at all made sure there was vegetarian food available for me. have i mentioned how much i love argentines? hehe.
i was actually really nervous to go to lunch with the family. its not that i haven't been surrounded by only argentines but more that i think the language barrier is much more existent&apparent with the older generation and i really wanted to make a good impression on the woman who is so incredibly important to this family. turns out that abuelita is identical to my family (which makes sense considering she raised my host mami/was involved in the upbringing of my sisters) which means that she's incredibly loving and open. the first thing she said to me when she met me was how pleased she was to finally meet me and how beautiful i am. way to make me feel welcome, hmm? i sat with her for a bit while the fam got lunch together, like i do with my own grandparents, and i certainly didn't have to worry about any silence. i think old people have an incredible amount of wisdom and that every story can add something valuable to my life. if anything, the things she shared with me increased my cultural understanding and gave me an older generation's perspective on things like art. i cherished the time i got to speak with her and being involved in the two+ hour meal with my sisters, my mom, my grandma and the woman who takes care of grandma was something i'll always remember because i was so warmly invited and included and got to see the celebration of a family holiday in a culture that values family above all else.
and since its mother's day, i feel like it's only fair to finally post about my wonderful mom away from mom, Cristina. before i came to argentina, we called her to get an idea of the family i was about to move in with for six months. and within a 15-minute conversation, she put momma, dad and me at ease. from what we gathered from that initial conversation, she had hosted plenty of students before and had fair experience with them. allowing a complete stranger to move into your house for six months can't be easy at all but she has been nothing but welcoming and loving since the day i moved in. i hear horror stories from friends about their host families sometimes and i'm always consistently thankful with how wonderful she is to me and how open she is to conversation if either one of us ever has an issue. the ability to share, to be open and honest and willing to compromise is something i have always valued in friends, in partners, in roommates and loved ones. and the fact that i can do that with her has made my time here that much more comfortable. i always thought that moving in with a host family would leave me feeling like a guest for six months, always walking on eggshells and afraid of disrupting the balance of the family. but i can honestly say that i consider this just as much my home as any other place i've ever lived and as my departure date looms nearer and nearer, i know that leaving is going to break my heart just as much as moving away from home for the first time did.
soo, a eli y la leti y cris - muchas, muchas, muuuchas gracias por hacerme sentir bienvenida y querida y por llenar el hueco dejado por mi propia familia. les considero familia tanto como la familia de sangre y estoy re emocionada de aprovechar los próximos dos meses juntas <3
today was día de madre (mother's day) and i bought my host mom a bottle of wine as a little token of appreciation for all that she's done for me in the past three months. it's funny how far a little thought goes because even though it was such a small token, she was so appreciative and kept telling me that it wasn't a necessary gift. the truth is that i didn't give it to her because it was necessary but rather because it was a small way to show her my appreciation and to let her know that i'm conscious of the role she plays in my life.
i went with my family to "our" grandmother's house for lunch. considerate as always, my wonderful sisters made vegetarian lasagna instead of using the traditional meat sauce (: and one of the women who takes care of abuela made canolis (think salty crepes stuffed with spinach&cheese or ham&cheese). even someone who doesn't know me at all made sure there was vegetarian food available for me. have i mentioned how much i love argentines? hehe.
i was actually really nervous to go to lunch with the family. its not that i haven't been surrounded by only argentines but more that i think the language barrier is much more existent&apparent with the older generation and i really wanted to make a good impression on the woman who is so incredibly important to this family. turns out that abuelita is identical to my family (which makes sense considering she raised my host mami/was involved in the upbringing of my sisters) which means that she's incredibly loving and open. the first thing she said to me when she met me was how pleased she was to finally meet me and how beautiful i am. way to make me feel welcome, hmm? i sat with her for a bit while the fam got lunch together, like i do with my own grandparents, and i certainly didn't have to worry about any silence. i think old people have an incredible amount of wisdom and that every story can add something valuable to my life. if anything, the things she shared with me increased my cultural understanding and gave me an older generation's perspective on things like art. i cherished the time i got to speak with her and being involved in the two+ hour meal with my sisters, my mom, my grandma and the woman who takes care of grandma was something i'll always remember because i was so warmly invited and included and got to see the celebration of a family holiday in a culture that values family above all else.
and since its mother's day, i feel like it's only fair to finally post about my wonderful mom away from mom, Cristina. before i came to argentina, we called her to get an idea of the family i was about to move in with for six months. and within a 15-minute conversation, she put momma, dad and me at ease. from what we gathered from that initial conversation, she had hosted plenty of students before and had fair experience with them. allowing a complete stranger to move into your house for six months can't be easy at all but she has been nothing but welcoming and loving since the day i moved in. i hear horror stories from friends about their host families sometimes and i'm always consistently thankful with how wonderful she is to me and how open she is to conversation if either one of us ever has an issue. the ability to share, to be open and honest and willing to compromise is something i have always valued in friends, in partners, in roommates and loved ones. and the fact that i can do that with her has made my time here that much more comfortable. i always thought that moving in with a host family would leave me feeling like a guest for six months, always walking on eggshells and afraid of disrupting the balance of the family. but i can honestly say that i consider this just as much my home as any other place i've ever lived and as my departure date looms nearer and nearer, i know that leaving is going to break my heart just as much as moving away from home for the first time did.
soo, a eli y la leti y cris - muchas, muchas, muuuchas gracias por hacerme sentir bienvenida y querida y por llenar el hueco dejado por mi propia familia. les considero familia tanto como la familia de sangre y estoy re emocionada de aprovechar los próximos dos meses juntas <3
Sunday, September 25, 2011
long way to happy.
so i know the next promised post was about the economy since i'm taking an econ class and i'm freaking in love but everytime i sit down to write about it, i just get angry and frustrated and disillusioned and feel incredibly helpless. actually, i feel that way a lot about anything i do that matters.
i've been looking for internships since i've gotten here because when i leave argentina and people ask me what i did in six months in a foreign country, i don't want to only be able to say i went out with friends. i can go out with friends any time back home - i wanted the things i do here to be meaningful, once-in-a-lifetime experience. but finally, finally, i realized that spending time with friends - especially the argentine ones - IS a once-in-a-lifetime experience. i touched on this a couple posts ago, i think, but i'm growing and changing and evolving such an incredible amount and when i look at the things i can attribute that change to, it's to the people who are in my life.
that being said, i know that if i do start internships/volunteer opportunities, i will be impacted just as much if not more. so after a beautiful trip to patagonia ...
(i digress for a bit because holy. shit. there are simply no words to describe patagonia. it is probably the most incredible place i've ever been to or will ever go to in my entire life. living in san diego, i have a certain attachment/dependence on the beach and patagonia was the first time i've seen the ocean in almost 4 months. i immediately felt at home. something about the wind in my ears, about the sound of the waves crashing gives me space to meditate. i isolated myself and just stood in the water (which was freeeeezing, by the way. took me until my entrance into the water to realize that its the same water that hugs the glaciers in antarctica. cold.) and meditated on my time here. three months from today, i come back to the states. and i used that time by myself in the most beautiful place in the world to reflect on what i've achieved since i've been here and what i want to achieve before i leave. so many thoughts rushed through my head in that week and my own happiness and contentment surprised me more than anything else. i haven't had true nightmares in so long and i know almost all of that is due to the fact that here, i've slowed down enough to allow myself to work through the things that have always bothered me at home, the things i've refused to deal with, the things my subconscious deals with through my nightmares. essentially, i'm healthier here than i have ever been at home. i've always had such a drive to do well, to succeed, to work to get to that end goal that i completely and totally forgot about the present. everything i have ever done have been steps towards the future but here, i've realized that the present is just as important, if not more than, as whatever i achieve in the future. and if i allow myself to truly experience every moment in the present, to absorb things and allow them to change me & to help me grow, i'm more likely to succeed in the future anyway because i'll be truly in tune with who i am, what i want and what will make me the most fulfilled. rereading that, it sounds like i've given myself permission to be lazy and maybe i have and that's probably not so good but knowing i'm in the healthiest mental place i've ever been in in my life makes it hard for me to want to change anything about the way i'm leading my life here.)
... i started a volunteer position at a children's home that my wonderful, wonderful angel of a assistant director of our program helped me find. all through high school, i worked with autistic children in a program called VIP soccer. essentially, we played soccer with autistic kids a couple months out of the year and it helped them develop in so many respects. the physical sport developed their motor coordination. the human interaction developed their social skills, their ability to express themselves since most autistic kids can't talk, and their ability to adapt to changing situations. the thing with autistic kids is that they're usually incredibly intelligent human beings. one mom at VIP soccer explained it to me like this - autistic kids have all their "motors" working but they lack the wires that allows them to express themselves. when we have a thought, we have ways of expressing it. we can show affection, we can write and talk and express emotions. we can control the ways we express ourselves. for them, when they can express themselves, they most certainly can't control the way that expression manifests itself. what we did through the medium of soccer was help them develop that control.
at this home, though, there are only two autistic kids. the rest of them have cerebral paralysis which essentially halts their growth at a certain point. i think my position at the home is going to evolve the more time i spend their but as a starting point, i essentially act as accompaniment to the kids. so saturday morning, i spent a couple hours just getting to know the kids in the home. just so you get an idea of what i'm dealing with, i'm going to introduce you to my kids.
bryan is one of the most developed kids in the place. he's 9 years old and suffers from cerebral paralysis. what does this mean? it means that getting his attention is incredibly difficult. it means he may want something (a stuffed toy dog, mostly or brightly colored balls) but he can't tell you he does. he can wave his hand to get your attention and then you have to sit there and guess what it is he wants. sometimes, he just wants you to hold his hand. he craves physical touch but can't do anything more than hold onto one of your fingers. you can place the ball directly in his hand but it may take him up to five minutes to grasp it because he lacks really any form of motor coordination. it means that he can't close his mouth to swallow so he drools and for those of you who have kids/have been around kids, you know that that much saliva does nothing but irritate the skin. it means that we strap him into a wheelchair so he doesn't fall out because he can't hold himself upright. i found out that he loves dancing. and if you let him grasp a finger on each of your hands and sway with him, he's the happiest. and to show that happiness, he screams. and screams. and shakes his head from side to side so you get scared that something is terribly wrong but really, you've just brightened up his day. and two minutes later, he's back to being a vegetable, blank eyes, drooling mouth and slack grip on your finger.
lily is 52 years old. she is one of two kids out of the thirty that can speak. she has the mental capacity of a 12 year old. she also loves dancing. she'll come and put her arms around your shoulder and sway with this incredibly peaceful look on her face. if you make stuffed animals give her kisses, she giggles. she tries to tell you she loves you but she can't always get all the words in the right order. she can walk and dance and we consider her lucky.
one girl, whose name i never got because i wasn't strong enough to actually approach her, can't do any of the above. they tilt her wheelchair back so her head doesn't slide off the headrest. she barely blinks. she never smiles. she doesn't show any recognition of there being any human presence around her. she's just.... there.
according to the workers at the home, bryan used to be like the third person i described. a few years later, he's developed the place he is now which no one, least of all his doctors, ever thought would be possible. they say human interaction really helps them. they say that we have to push them, hold the ball a little out of their reach, make them work for things. they say these things, these few hours we spend with them every week, will help them develop.
i hope i come to the same conclusion. because right now, all i feel is helpless. i wonder if they think constantly without any way to express themselves. i wonder if it drives them crazy. i wonder if they're sad. most of the kids are orphans but a few have been abandoned by their families. i wonder if they miss their moms. i wonder why i have everything i do, why they don't deserve the same. i wonder at the sheer power, courage, bravery of the people who dedicate every single day to these kids. i wonder if i'll ever do anything nearly as meaningful.
so after giving myself three months to heal, to become whole and happy and content with my life - its time to start pushing again. i'm hoping to keep up with this volunteer position at the home, i'm pushing a friend to let me come to the slums with him here in córdoba to get a sense of the places i think i want to work in in the future, my gender professor is looking for an internship with a women's ngo and hooopefully, i'll find something in a hospital too. i know it sounds like a ton but while i'm here, my experiences are a lot more important to me than my grades for once and i'm going to take advantage of everything i possibly can. after all, only 90 days to gooooo!
i've been looking for internships since i've gotten here because when i leave argentina and people ask me what i did in six months in a foreign country, i don't want to only be able to say i went out with friends. i can go out with friends any time back home - i wanted the things i do here to be meaningful, once-in-a-lifetime experience. but finally, finally, i realized that spending time with friends - especially the argentine ones - IS a once-in-a-lifetime experience. i touched on this a couple posts ago, i think, but i'm growing and changing and evolving such an incredible amount and when i look at the things i can attribute that change to, it's to the people who are in my life.
that being said, i know that if i do start internships/volunteer opportunities, i will be impacted just as much if not more. so after a beautiful trip to patagonia ...
(i digress for a bit because holy. shit. there are simply no words to describe patagonia. it is probably the most incredible place i've ever been to or will ever go to in my entire life. living in san diego, i have a certain attachment/dependence on the beach and patagonia was the first time i've seen the ocean in almost 4 months. i immediately felt at home. something about the wind in my ears, about the sound of the waves crashing gives me space to meditate. i isolated myself and just stood in the water (which was freeeeezing, by the way. took me until my entrance into the water to realize that its the same water that hugs the glaciers in antarctica. cold.) and meditated on my time here. three months from today, i come back to the states. and i used that time by myself in the most beautiful place in the world to reflect on what i've achieved since i've been here and what i want to achieve before i leave. so many thoughts rushed through my head in that week and my own happiness and contentment surprised me more than anything else. i haven't had true nightmares in so long and i know almost all of that is due to the fact that here, i've slowed down enough to allow myself to work through the things that have always bothered me at home, the things i've refused to deal with, the things my subconscious deals with through my nightmares. essentially, i'm healthier here than i have ever been at home. i've always had such a drive to do well, to succeed, to work to get to that end goal that i completely and totally forgot about the present. everything i have ever done have been steps towards the future but here, i've realized that the present is just as important, if not more than, as whatever i achieve in the future. and if i allow myself to truly experience every moment in the present, to absorb things and allow them to change me & to help me grow, i'm more likely to succeed in the future anyway because i'll be truly in tune with who i am, what i want and what will make me the most fulfilled. rereading that, it sounds like i've given myself permission to be lazy and maybe i have and that's probably not so good but knowing i'm in the healthiest mental place i've ever been in in my life makes it hard for me to want to change anything about the way i'm leading my life here.)
... i started a volunteer position at a children's home that my wonderful, wonderful angel of a assistant director of our program helped me find. all through high school, i worked with autistic children in a program called VIP soccer. essentially, we played soccer with autistic kids a couple months out of the year and it helped them develop in so many respects. the physical sport developed their motor coordination. the human interaction developed their social skills, their ability to express themselves since most autistic kids can't talk, and their ability to adapt to changing situations. the thing with autistic kids is that they're usually incredibly intelligent human beings. one mom at VIP soccer explained it to me like this - autistic kids have all their "motors" working but they lack the wires that allows them to express themselves. when we have a thought, we have ways of expressing it. we can show affection, we can write and talk and express emotions. we can control the ways we express ourselves. for them, when they can express themselves, they most certainly can't control the way that expression manifests itself. what we did through the medium of soccer was help them develop that control.
at this home, though, there are only two autistic kids. the rest of them have cerebral paralysis which essentially halts their growth at a certain point. i think my position at the home is going to evolve the more time i spend their but as a starting point, i essentially act as accompaniment to the kids. so saturday morning, i spent a couple hours just getting to know the kids in the home. just so you get an idea of what i'm dealing with, i'm going to introduce you to my kids.
bryan is one of the most developed kids in the place. he's 9 years old and suffers from cerebral paralysis. what does this mean? it means that getting his attention is incredibly difficult. it means he may want something (a stuffed toy dog, mostly or brightly colored balls) but he can't tell you he does. he can wave his hand to get your attention and then you have to sit there and guess what it is he wants. sometimes, he just wants you to hold his hand. he craves physical touch but can't do anything more than hold onto one of your fingers. you can place the ball directly in his hand but it may take him up to five minutes to grasp it because he lacks really any form of motor coordination. it means that he can't close his mouth to swallow so he drools and for those of you who have kids/have been around kids, you know that that much saliva does nothing but irritate the skin. it means that we strap him into a wheelchair so he doesn't fall out because he can't hold himself upright. i found out that he loves dancing. and if you let him grasp a finger on each of your hands and sway with him, he's the happiest. and to show that happiness, he screams. and screams. and shakes his head from side to side so you get scared that something is terribly wrong but really, you've just brightened up his day. and two minutes later, he's back to being a vegetable, blank eyes, drooling mouth and slack grip on your finger.
lily is 52 years old. she is one of two kids out of the thirty that can speak. she has the mental capacity of a 12 year old. she also loves dancing. she'll come and put her arms around your shoulder and sway with this incredibly peaceful look on her face. if you make stuffed animals give her kisses, she giggles. she tries to tell you she loves you but she can't always get all the words in the right order. she can walk and dance and we consider her lucky.
one girl, whose name i never got because i wasn't strong enough to actually approach her, can't do any of the above. they tilt her wheelchair back so her head doesn't slide off the headrest. she barely blinks. she never smiles. she doesn't show any recognition of there being any human presence around her. she's just.... there.
according to the workers at the home, bryan used to be like the third person i described. a few years later, he's developed the place he is now which no one, least of all his doctors, ever thought would be possible. they say human interaction really helps them. they say that we have to push them, hold the ball a little out of their reach, make them work for things. they say these things, these few hours we spend with them every week, will help them develop.
i hope i come to the same conclusion. because right now, all i feel is helpless. i wonder if they think constantly without any way to express themselves. i wonder if it drives them crazy. i wonder if they're sad. most of the kids are orphans but a few have been abandoned by their families. i wonder if they miss their moms. i wonder why i have everything i do, why they don't deserve the same. i wonder at the sheer power, courage, bravery of the people who dedicate every single day to these kids. i wonder if i'll ever do anything nearly as meaningful.
so after giving myself three months to heal, to become whole and happy and content with my life - its time to start pushing again. i'm hoping to keep up with this volunteer position at the home, i'm pushing a friend to let me come to the slums with him here in córdoba to get a sense of the places i think i want to work in in the future, my gender professor is looking for an internship with a women's ngo and hooopefully, i'll find something in a hospital too. i know it sounds like a ton but while i'm here, my experiences are a lot more important to me than my grades for once and i'm going to take advantage of everything i possibly can. after all, only 90 days to gooooo!
Sunday, September 4, 2011
send away for the perfect world; one simply not so absurd.
i think the hardest part of this trip - and the reason why i've been resisting it so much - is because it has forced me to do an incredible amount of reflection, both conscious and sub-conscious, which has in turn led to increasing self-awareness and understanding that at times truly takes courage to deal with, accept and internalize. the last post, of course, was about the reflections concerning my future career choice and the accompanying, terrifying "i have no idea what i want to do with my life" feelings.
i hate making decisions. i'll avoid it at much as humanly possible but once i've made a decision, i stick to it. if it takes me so freaking long to actually make the decision in the first place, by the time i finally do, i'm not going to change my mind and have to go through that entire process again. i spent the better part of high school exploring my options and by the time i graduated, i had decided what my future would look like and i thought i was about 99.9% positive i knew what i wanted. this past year has been another round of exploration, though, and that seemingly insignificant 0.1% had now taken over my life. while i spent an immense amount of time resenting my indecisiveness and my confusion, i now realize that it was a blessing in disguise.
and then i flew 5668 miles to do some meditation, get a change of scenery, space to clear my mind, to get rid of an unhealthy attachment and what do i do? i fight. tooth and nail, i fought. suddenly, i was getting everything i want but those wants inherently called for change. i hate change - maybe even more than i hate decisions, i hate change but there just comes a moment when you know you need to give in, and the result - while incredibly, indescribably emotionally draining - i think has been net positive.
relationships.
the most important thing in the world to me are my relationships to people. i form attachments quickly and in order to save myself the pain of having to break said attachments, i invest a lot into the relationships that are important and meaningful to me to ensure their success. i also feel things a lot deeper and more intensely than most people do so the highs of these relationships make my present and future shine whereas lows are draining and defeating. i was afraid to come here because i've done long-distance and it caused nothing but tension and frustration; being here means i risked losing my relationships with those i care about dearly, and invested an incredible amount in. and i was equally afraid of forming new attachments and creating relationships here only to know that after these 6 months, i would probably never see these people again.
in the past few days, through writing and listening to meaningful songs and reading beautiful poetry and watching sappy love stories (yes, mostly grey's anatomy...), i've come to see that even if i lose friendships back home, if i create or fail to create meaningful relationships here - each experience will have challenged me and forced me to grow and adapt. i learn through experience. and i'd rather deal with the sadness of loss than risk missing learning, growing, maturing through interactions with others.
still, goodbyes are never easy; in case where i gave and loved, they're even harder. and as i'm saying very difficult, probably permanent, goodbyes, i'm trying my hardest to be okay with them, to not hold grudges, to wish the best for those i'm saying goodbye to, and to convince myself that change is healthy and really, what i was looking for when i left home.
see what i mean about needing courage? my therapist would be proud.
feminism.
i think i've mentioned this before but i'm taking a fierce gender studies and social work class. i signed up originally thinking it was a human rights class with a gender component but the entire thing is about gender, about domestic violence, about women's rights, etc.
i came to this country being told both by people who have visited/have family in argentina and my program that argentina was a conservative country and that it has deeply catholic facets embedded in the people and in the government that strongly influence society. as almost everything else i was told before i came (except for the out-of-control love for meat), however, this information was misleading. that's not to say that there isn't a large catholic presence here or that it doesn't influence society but rather, being told things like that clouded my judgment and gave me a bias before i even got here of what i was going to encounter. the nation, contrary to what i was led to believe, is extremely socially progressive. gay marriage is legal. the current president is a female. education is free. medical care is largely subsidized by the government and doctors are often found making house calls.
so then, from one extreme, i jumped to the other. suddenly, i found myself in awe of such a progressive government - i still need to learn to take everything with a grain of salt. because in my gender studies class, in spite of all these seemingly progressive laws, there remains both a large lack of rights for minorities (especially women) and a discordance between the existence of laws and their actual practice. for example, in this class, i learned that the government instated a program called Sexual Health and Responsible Procreation. under said law, all health insurance providers and state-sponsored hospitals/clinics were required to provide certain anti-contraceptives free for any patient over 14 who asked for them. as students chimed in on this discussion last week, i realized that the law might as well be non-existent for all it succeeds to do. only 5 or so people in the class of 70 had ever heard of the program to begin with. and of those who knew about it and went to go receive birth control, they were either given the run-around by their insurance companies or the pharmacies responsible for dispensing the medication. the reasons for this are still unclear considering the state buys the medicine and all that remains to be done is distribution but maybe it does have something to do with the catholic culture. maybe there are hidden fees that i'm missing. in any case, women and young girls aren't getting access to the birth control they need.
so when they get unwanted pregnancies, they look for ways to terminate them. unfortunately, abortion is illegal in argentina except in cases of proven (oh yes, i know) rape or danger to the mother's life. as a result, 33% of all maternal deaths are a result of unsafe abortions. thirty three percent. at a maternal mortality rate (MMR) of 46/100,000 live births, that is an enormous, completely unacceptable statistic. MMR in less developed countries in Latin America remain around the same percentage but more women die annually, resulting in more deaths due to abortion. regardless of cultural expectations or religious influence, when such a high percent of maternal deaths are due to unsafe abortions, clearly there is a societal need for access to safe abortions.
so my vagina warrior of a professor organized a jornada (forum) on abortion. she called in the director of public health at the university and a pioneering doctor/public policy worker from uruguay. together, they pitched the current ways to circumvent the laws in order to provide care for mothers after they aborted their fetus by buying the pill on the black market. we may not be able to help them with the actual abortion, but at least we can be there to save their lives after the fact. i wonder if they're criminalized if the government finds out after the fact. i hope not.
as the debate on abortion in the states is becoming more and more pronounced, being in a country that has outlawed abortion and seeing the very real effects of such a decision had made me realized, a thousand times more than before, how very essential of a right the right to choose is and has resolved me even more to continue pushing to make that right universal.
_____
i think that's probably enough for one post of realizations haha. keep an eye out for the next one - i'll be talking economics and culture (:
i hate making decisions. i'll avoid it at much as humanly possible but once i've made a decision, i stick to it. if it takes me so freaking long to actually make the decision in the first place, by the time i finally do, i'm not going to change my mind and have to go through that entire process again. i spent the better part of high school exploring my options and by the time i graduated, i had decided what my future would look like and i thought i was about 99.9% positive i knew what i wanted. this past year has been another round of exploration, though, and that seemingly insignificant 0.1% had now taken over my life. while i spent an immense amount of time resenting my indecisiveness and my confusion, i now realize that it was a blessing in disguise.
and then i flew 5668 miles to do some meditation, get a change of scenery, space to clear my mind, to get rid of an unhealthy attachment and what do i do? i fight. tooth and nail, i fought. suddenly, i was getting everything i want but those wants inherently called for change. i hate change - maybe even more than i hate decisions, i hate change but there just comes a moment when you know you need to give in, and the result - while incredibly, indescribably emotionally draining - i think has been net positive.
relationships.
the most important thing in the world to me are my relationships to people. i form attachments quickly and in order to save myself the pain of having to break said attachments, i invest a lot into the relationships that are important and meaningful to me to ensure their success. i also feel things a lot deeper and more intensely than most people do so the highs of these relationships make my present and future shine whereas lows are draining and defeating. i was afraid to come here because i've done long-distance and it caused nothing but tension and frustration; being here means i risked losing my relationships with those i care about dearly, and invested an incredible amount in. and i was equally afraid of forming new attachments and creating relationships here only to know that after these 6 months, i would probably never see these people again.
in the past few days, through writing and listening to meaningful songs and reading beautiful poetry and watching sappy love stories (yes, mostly grey's anatomy...), i've come to see that even if i lose friendships back home, if i create or fail to create meaningful relationships here - each experience will have challenged me and forced me to grow and adapt. i learn through experience. and i'd rather deal with the sadness of loss than risk missing learning, growing, maturing through interactions with others.
still, goodbyes are never easy; in case where i gave and loved, they're even harder. and as i'm saying very difficult, probably permanent, goodbyes, i'm trying my hardest to be okay with them, to not hold grudges, to wish the best for those i'm saying goodbye to, and to convince myself that change is healthy and really, what i was looking for when i left home.
see what i mean about needing courage? my therapist would be proud.
feminism.
i think i've mentioned this before but i'm taking a fierce gender studies and social work class. i signed up originally thinking it was a human rights class with a gender component but the entire thing is about gender, about domestic violence, about women's rights, etc.
i came to this country being told both by people who have visited/have family in argentina and my program that argentina was a conservative country and that it has deeply catholic facets embedded in the people and in the government that strongly influence society. as almost everything else i was told before i came (except for the out-of-control love for meat), however, this information was misleading. that's not to say that there isn't a large catholic presence here or that it doesn't influence society but rather, being told things like that clouded my judgment and gave me a bias before i even got here of what i was going to encounter. the nation, contrary to what i was led to believe, is extremely socially progressive. gay marriage is legal. the current president is a female. education is free. medical care is largely subsidized by the government and doctors are often found making house calls.
so then, from one extreme, i jumped to the other. suddenly, i found myself in awe of such a progressive government - i still need to learn to take everything with a grain of salt. because in my gender studies class, in spite of all these seemingly progressive laws, there remains both a large lack of rights for minorities (especially women) and a discordance between the existence of laws and their actual practice. for example, in this class, i learned that the government instated a program called Sexual Health and Responsible Procreation. under said law, all health insurance providers and state-sponsored hospitals/clinics were required to provide certain anti-contraceptives free for any patient over 14 who asked for them. as students chimed in on this discussion last week, i realized that the law might as well be non-existent for all it succeeds to do. only 5 or so people in the class of 70 had ever heard of the program to begin with. and of those who knew about it and went to go receive birth control, they were either given the run-around by their insurance companies or the pharmacies responsible for dispensing the medication. the reasons for this are still unclear considering the state buys the medicine and all that remains to be done is distribution but maybe it does have something to do with the catholic culture. maybe there are hidden fees that i'm missing. in any case, women and young girls aren't getting access to the birth control they need.
so when they get unwanted pregnancies, they look for ways to terminate them. unfortunately, abortion is illegal in argentina except in cases of proven (oh yes, i know) rape or danger to the mother's life. as a result, 33% of all maternal deaths are a result of unsafe abortions. thirty three percent. at a maternal mortality rate (MMR) of 46/100,000 live births, that is an enormous, completely unacceptable statistic. MMR in less developed countries in Latin America remain around the same percentage but more women die annually, resulting in more deaths due to abortion. regardless of cultural expectations or religious influence, when such a high percent of maternal deaths are due to unsafe abortions, clearly there is a societal need for access to safe abortions.
so my vagina warrior of a professor organized a jornada (forum) on abortion. she called in the director of public health at the university and a pioneering doctor/public policy worker from uruguay. together, they pitched the current ways to circumvent the laws in order to provide care for mothers after they aborted their fetus by buying the pill on the black market. we may not be able to help them with the actual abortion, but at least we can be there to save their lives after the fact. i wonder if they're criminalized if the government finds out after the fact. i hope not.
as the debate on abortion in the states is becoming more and more pronounced, being in a country that has outlawed abortion and seeing the very real effects of such a decision had made me realized, a thousand times more than before, how very essential of a right the right to choose is and has resolved me even more to continue pushing to make that right universal.
_____
i think that's probably enough for one post of realizations haha. keep an eye out for the next one - i'll be talking economics and culture (:
Friday, August 12, 2011
it's like i've waited my whole life for this one night.
i know there was a heck of a lot of complaining going on in the past few weeks - homesickness, frustration at the repetitive nights out, frustration with my 20-hour-a-week spanish course, annoyance with the aggressive boys, etc. etc. - but with the events of the past week, my outlook has finally completely changed.
after my trip to honduras, i am more confused than ever as to what i want to do with the rest of my life. pretty much since my junior year in high school, i have been convinced that international medicine is it. but with as little as three days in that village, everything has been flipped upside down.
being functional with spanish, i got to spend a lot of one on one time with the honduran doctors in the clinic. one thing one of the doctors said to me has stood out to me above all else. he told me that his favorite part of becoming a doctor is being able to interact with the patients, both rich and poor, to get to touch them and get to know them and help them in a really tangible manner. he said being a doctor is like being an artist, a scientist, and one other thing that's escaping me right now, all in one. essentially, his point was that everything he loved - from real human interaction to knowing he's making a tangible impact on humanity - was attainable through his practice.
i was both inspired by watching him and incredibly saddened. i think growing up in a developed country has left me feeling like death must be conquered at every turn. with the incredible technology and medical advances made every day, people are living longer and longer. i realized in honduras that this obsession with extending life is supremely unnatural. all these economic problems the states are facing can, in part, be directly attributed to the baby boomers who are increasingly relying on social security and medicare. it may sound barbaric but sometimes, it's just time to let go.
what we did in honduras was nothing more than a band-aid solution. through all my classes on global health/poverty, i was led to believe that big-name infectious diseases like TB and malaria are the most dire problems citizens of developing countries face. what I learned was that the three main things that affect people in the rural areas are things like dehydration that kills a lot of kids under five, malnutrition and parasites. in the cities, we find things that affect us in the States – things like depression and alcoholism.
with an incredible lack of public health education, the things that affect these people are things that doctors can't fix. ignoring the lack of access to any form of screening or testing which was the one of the biggest sources of my disillusionment as to how much of a difference a doctor can actually make in these impoverished areas, i was equally disillusioned by how little the people i interacted with knew about simple preventative care, about taking care of themselves and their families. less than a third of the people knew how to purify their water and those who did know didn't do it because they didn't really think it was that important. they failed to connect the lack of clean water with the parasites every single one of their children had. these parasites made the kids incredibly sick so they barely ever actually made it to school which embeds them even deeper into this sick cycle of poverty. without education, the kids are relegated to the same manual labor jobs as their parents and will very rarely amount to anything more. without productive citizens advancing the nation, these developing countries will never really develop and become competitive in an increasingly globalized market.
i was left to question, then, whether my talents would be better used as a doctor (because even with all the disillusionment, the satisfaction my doctors garnered as they helped their own people in this make-shift clinic was very, very real) or as some kind of policy-maker, perhaps, helping to set up infrastructure to target the needs of these villages. that, unfortunately, is a question i still have yet to answer and my time to decide is running out fairly quickly.
which brings me back to the purpose of this post. in the past week, i've interacted with an incredible amount of argentine citizens about their lives and the problems they see in their own country. additionally, i've finally started my integrated course at the university with other argentine students. the class is entitled human rights, gender and social work. it is very much like the critical gender studies classes i've taken at ucsd and i have to admit, it's wonderful to not have to learn new material but rather learn material i already know in spanish. this way, i'm not missing vital information but i'm learning the vocabulary and a specialized outlook from a latin american/argentine point of view. in the first class, i didn't participate but rather sat back and listened to the perspectives of both my classmates and the professor.
i've been feeling this way for quite a while but sitting in that class and just absorbing everything around me, i've started thinking that maybe i limited the options of what i can do with the rest of my life too early. one of the most influential role models in my life, my eldest cousin, told me repeatedly that if medicine is truly what i wanted to do, i would be immensely satisfied with my career choice as she is. but there was a huge possibility that i could find very many other paths that would lead me to the same amount of satisfaction.
after this class and these conversations with the locals, i'm really excited to truly start taking advantage of the opportunities available to me here. i've complained for much too long and the truth is that i'm here for the next five months so i might as well live it up to the best of my ability. i've been talking to the directors of my program a lot over the past week and they're going to put me into contact with a couple of ngo's in the city. i'm hoping to score an internship with one of them and start extending a lot more feelers into other career options. the goal is to finally commit to something by the time i come back home. i still have a ton to learn before i can do that, though, and i'm so excited to get started (:
after my trip to honduras, i am more confused than ever as to what i want to do with the rest of my life. pretty much since my junior year in high school, i have been convinced that international medicine is it. but with as little as three days in that village, everything has been flipped upside down.
being functional with spanish, i got to spend a lot of one on one time with the honduran doctors in the clinic. one thing one of the doctors said to me has stood out to me above all else. he told me that his favorite part of becoming a doctor is being able to interact with the patients, both rich and poor, to get to touch them and get to know them and help them in a really tangible manner. he said being a doctor is like being an artist, a scientist, and one other thing that's escaping me right now, all in one. essentially, his point was that everything he loved - from real human interaction to knowing he's making a tangible impact on humanity - was attainable through his practice.
i was both inspired by watching him and incredibly saddened. i think growing up in a developed country has left me feeling like death must be conquered at every turn. with the incredible technology and medical advances made every day, people are living longer and longer. i realized in honduras that this obsession with extending life is supremely unnatural. all these economic problems the states are facing can, in part, be directly attributed to the baby boomers who are increasingly relying on social security and medicare. it may sound barbaric but sometimes, it's just time to let go.
what we did in honduras was nothing more than a band-aid solution. through all my classes on global health/poverty, i was led to believe that big-name infectious diseases like TB and malaria are the most dire problems citizens of developing countries face. what I learned was that the three main things that affect people in the rural areas are things like dehydration that kills a lot of kids under five, malnutrition and parasites. in the cities, we find things that affect us in the States – things like depression and alcoholism.
with an incredible lack of public health education, the things that affect these people are things that doctors can't fix. ignoring the lack of access to any form of screening or testing which was the one of the biggest sources of my disillusionment as to how much of a difference a doctor can actually make in these impoverished areas, i was equally disillusioned by how little the people i interacted with knew about simple preventative care, about taking care of themselves and their families. less than a third of the people knew how to purify their water and those who did know didn't do it because they didn't really think it was that important. they failed to connect the lack of clean water with the parasites every single one of their children had. these parasites made the kids incredibly sick so they barely ever actually made it to school which embeds them even deeper into this sick cycle of poverty. without education, the kids are relegated to the same manual labor jobs as their parents and will very rarely amount to anything more. without productive citizens advancing the nation, these developing countries will never really develop and become competitive in an increasingly globalized market.
i was left to question, then, whether my talents would be better used as a doctor (because even with all the disillusionment, the satisfaction my doctors garnered as they helped their own people in this make-shift clinic was very, very real) or as some kind of policy-maker, perhaps, helping to set up infrastructure to target the needs of these villages. that, unfortunately, is a question i still have yet to answer and my time to decide is running out fairly quickly.
which brings me back to the purpose of this post. in the past week, i've interacted with an incredible amount of argentine citizens about their lives and the problems they see in their own country. additionally, i've finally started my integrated course at the university with other argentine students. the class is entitled human rights, gender and social work. it is very much like the critical gender studies classes i've taken at ucsd and i have to admit, it's wonderful to not have to learn new material but rather learn material i already know in spanish. this way, i'm not missing vital information but i'm learning the vocabulary and a specialized outlook from a latin american/argentine point of view. in the first class, i didn't participate but rather sat back and listened to the perspectives of both my classmates and the professor.
i've been feeling this way for quite a while but sitting in that class and just absorbing everything around me, i've started thinking that maybe i limited the options of what i can do with the rest of my life too early. one of the most influential role models in my life, my eldest cousin, told me repeatedly that if medicine is truly what i wanted to do, i would be immensely satisfied with my career choice as she is. but there was a huge possibility that i could find very many other paths that would lead me to the same amount of satisfaction.
after this class and these conversations with the locals, i'm really excited to truly start taking advantage of the opportunities available to me here. i've complained for much too long and the truth is that i'm here for the next five months so i might as well live it up to the best of my ability. i've been talking to the directors of my program a lot over the past week and they're going to put me into contact with a couple of ngo's in the city. i'm hoping to score an internship with one of them and start extending a lot more feelers into other career options. the goal is to finally commit to something by the time i come back home. i still have a ton to learn before i can do that, though, and i'm so excited to get started (:
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