Conclusion

Well it has been over a year now since I returned from my travels. In that time I have secured a job for next year in the San Francisco Bay Area, graduated from college, and had my tonsils removed. I miss traveling internationally, but am excited to move across the country and begin the next step. Having had a year to reflect on my study abroad experiences, I'm really glad that I chose the program and had the experiences that I did. The academics may not have been up to my expectations, but the experiences and relationships I built were truly unique. On that note, the relationships among the students from the group have been fantastic. We try to see each other on every break and visit one another when possible. Of the four countries I visited, I hope to travel back to India first. I'm very curious to compare northern India to the areas I saw in the South. Other than that, I'm aiming for Brazil 2014 World Cup! 

Quick Update

        South Africa has been a very interesting experience. At the beginning of our time here, we spent ten days living in homestays in a black township called Zwelethemba that's about an hour and a half outside of Cape Town. While living there I didn't fully appreciate the importance of that experience, but after living in Cape Town for a week and a half I see that if I had only lived around the University of Cape Town and downtown then I really wouldn't have a good understanding of the country. SA also has the highest economic disparity in the world in its population and you really do see it. That said, I'm having a lot of fun and eating some great food. I've gotten the reputation as the food guy on the trip for both how much I eat and everything that I want to try. This weekend my friends and I took a day trip to Cape Point and climbed rocks with the local African Penguins. Everything that I've seen and learned about HIV/AIDS here has been another unforgettable experience.
         At the moment we're living in homestays in the Bo Kaap, the Muslim neighborhood of Cape Town. The location is only a couple of blocks away from downtown, which is really convenient. The family consists of a mother, father, and three sons, aged 11, 16, and 18. They've hosted IHP students before and so they understand us well and give us our space. Honestly, at this point on the trip it's nice to have the space. This is the fourth homestay in a row and we're all appreciative of the hands-off approach. I really like hearing the call to prayer throughout the day in the neighborhood.

Many Apologies

I\m very sorry to everybody for not being able to update the blog for the past month. While in China, blogger was blocked by the government and I was really busy. I've been in South Africa for two weeks now, but for most of that time I barely had any internet access. Posts will start coming up again in the next few days now that I have an internet cafe nearby. Since the last few posts, I've been in Beijing, Changsha, Shanghai, and Hong Kong in China and Zwelethema and Cape Town in South Africa. We also stopped over in Dubai again on the flight from Hong Kong to Cape Town. I was really excited to eat Pinkberry in the Dubai airport and it was expensive, but really worth it. 

And Squeeze…One…Two…Three

  Last week we spent five days as a group on a rural visit. First we drove twelve hours west to a rural town called Aliyar where we spent two nights, and then from there drove six or seven hours east to the ancient Chole dynasty capital city of Thanjavur for another two nights.

            At Aliyar, we stayed at a large ashram complex devoted to the followers of a particular type of yoga and belief system. As a group, we didn’t really like the ashram. There were a lot of rules there that we were not made aware of beforehand, such as no shorts for guys and silence whenever possible, and the schedule there was not clear at all. The morning after we arrived, we were told we would have a one hour lecture about the purpose of the ashram, its history, etc. and then a tour would follow, but then that one hour lecture turned into a four hour lecture full of pseudoscience and bullshit. Only half of the group showed up to begin with, and then another half left at the break. I only stayed for the whole thing out of respect for our country coordinators.

            The best part of the lecture was the end, when the central tenant of the ashram was revealed to us. The culmination of four hours of bullshit was the fact that the entire ashram and its practices are centered around squeezing your anus. Yes, squeezing your anus. Apparently, squeezing your anus multiple times a day, in several different positions, is very good for you. We then tried squeezing our anuses in the different positions ourselves while the director of the center, who was giving the lecture, calmly instructed us, “and squeeze…one…two…three…” until the count of ten, at which point we held the squeeze for a short time.

            At least the ashram was located in a very beautiful setting in forest and mountains. The grounds were also full of troupes of monkeys! They actually attacked several students in the group to steal food from them. I managed to see a group of wild peacocks walking in the grounds too.

Vacation Wildlife Log

Mammals:

-Leopard Prints

-Buffalo Prints

-Elephant Print

-Elephant Droppings

-Boar Droppings

-Mongoose

-Giant Grizzled Squirrel (endangered species, very cool to see)

Monkeys:

-Bonnet Macaques

-Nilgiri Langurs

Birds:

-Hoopoe

-Indian Black Eagle

-Unidentified Falcon

-Red-whiskered Bulbul

-Swallows

-House Sparrows

-Black-shouldered Kite

The Classes So Far

            The class haven’t been quite what I was expecting going into the program. As a group, we’ve had some issues with the way the classes have been run and the faculty members. I’m definitely not learning as much as I would be at Macalester, but I think things are starting to get better. Before vacation started, we had faculty evaluation sessions and finally had a good chance to voice out opinions about the classes.

            In the globalization and health (g+h) and public health (ph) courses, we want more focus on themes, connections between lectures, and discussions. In medical anthropology and research methods, we want more structure to discussions. In the latter two, there are very good signs of progress. In the first two, we’re hopeful the evaluations will provide some good feedback to work with. The professor of g+h and ph was also very flexible and changed our reading assignments from focusing on the readings themselves to using the readings as a springboard for discussions with our host families, which turned out to provide a lot of interesting information. However, the lectures still need some work. 

            I’ve also realized that I am not and will not be an anthropologist. There have been several discussions amongst the kids as to whether or not a lot of anthropology is just bullshit, and I’ve had a hard time seeing the practical applications of a lot of what we learn in anthro and how it will help me in the future.

            On a positive note, the classes have helped to realize that in medicine I would like to be able to work with individual patients, but at the same time work on the macro level as well through public health initiatives or maybe policy.

Vacation Pictures at Camp Noel