Food + Switzerland

     As many of you know, I love food. I deeply, truly, and passionately love eating and food. I'm already getting a reputation in the group for my eating habits. When I go somewhere new, I find the best way to get to know the place is to eat. So, I walk around and eat everything and anything that I think looks interesting or tasty.
     I've eaten a lot this trip so far. My favorite place in the city is Marktplatz, a small square in the center of the city that holds a market every day with different food stands. There are cheese stands, meat stands, Italian stands, stands with cured meats, bread stands, and wonderful food carts where I usually buy lunch. For lunch today I ate a large soft pretzel, a bratwurst, a very good bread with tomato sauce, olives, and sardines on/in it, some cheese, and an olive mix, all purchased from different stands in the Marktplatz.
     And the pastries! There are tons of shops throughout the city selling every sort of delicious looking bread and pastry concoction. I've been known on runs to stop suddenly and stare into the windows of these stores (my friends I run with got tired of this pretty quickly). The only downside to the food in Switzerland is that it costs so much money. Many Swiss actually travel to other countries, such as France and Germany, to do their grocery shopping because it costs about 20-30% less there.
     I also can't forget the chocolate. Chocolate is everywhere in this country, and it's cheap and delicious. The specialty chocolate stores can cost a fair amount of money, but you can get a really good bar of chocolate in a grocery store. And there are so many types and brands of chocolate! Even small markets seem to have a wall devoted solely to chocolate in all its glory.
     Due to the costs, I haven't really been able to check out the restaurant scene in Switzerland, but we did have a farewell lunch at a Turkish restaurant yesterday afternoon. Switzerland and Germany have large and growing Turkish immigrant populations that cause domestic tensions and it was nice to be exposed to that community for a little. The food was also quite good. I had peppers and grape leaves stuffed with spicy rice and covered in a yogurt sauce.
       I really can't wait for the food in India. It will be cheap, interesting, and there will be tons of it, everywhere.

 Marktplatz 

The ICRC

            The visit to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headquarters in Geneva was definitely one of the highlights for me. Our presenter was a seasoned Australian surgeon who had been in more countries and warzones than I can possibly remember. ICRC does really great, dangerous work, but he pointed out to us that the field of humanitarian aid organizations is not a happy family. They’re constantly fighting with each other for donor money, leadership on projects, people, etc. Furthermore, many workers in conflict zones and challenging situations for long periods of time can develop post-traumatic stress disorder. Even he caught himself falling into PTSD after his years of work. 

Illness Strikes!

      The first members of the group have succumbed to illness! Four girls are sick at the moment. One girl has a fever and sore throat, another was up all night with a bad stomach, and two have a fever and generally feel unwell. Since we’re together all the time, more girls are sure to get sick soon. Hopefully the guys can keep it out of our room (all five of us share a room), because if one of us gets sick then we’re all done for.

The World Health Organization

            Luckily for us, the Executive Board (EB) of the WHO began the first of their two annual meetings on Monday (the 17^th), the same day as our visit to the organization. The EB is composed of 34 member countries and works together before presenting projects, budgets, and findings to the annual general meetings of all 192 member states. This timing was perfect for us because we were able to watch the WHO Director General, Dr. Margaret Chan, give her speech about the state of global health and the WHO and then stand around the building while surrounded by ministers of health and other higher ups in the global health world. A few members of the group even got a picture with Dr. Chan! I only saw her from a few feet away…In the global health world that’s a big celebrity citing.

            Dr. Chan gave a very interesting and bold speech. She highlighted several encouraging accomplishments in global health over the past year, making sure to highlight the WHO’s role in them at the same time, but at the same time acknowledged to everybody that the WHO is in a somewhat troubled time. In her opinion, the WHO is overextended at the moment and needs reform at all levels. The problems of global health are more complex now, global health is a very crowded landscape, and in order to keep pace the organization needs to change. The WHO needs “an eye for everything, but not a programme for everything,” in her words.

            In addition to Dr. Chan’s speech, we were given an introduction to the WHO, listened to a presentation about the WHO and mental health, another presentation about the WHO’s programme for essential surgery services, and visited the SHOC room, which is used to coordinate emergency responses to natural disasters and epidemic breakouts.

            After visiting the WHO, listening to the different presentations, visiting other NGO’s, and talking with our faculty, my impressions of the WHO are mixed. People are losing confidence in the WHO and the UN as a whole in general. In the global health field, private foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are assuming a larger role as donors give less to the WHO and more to these organizations. The WHO is a sprawling organization and part of the much larger, much more sprawling UN organizational complex. Furthermore, in the past, not all of the donations from the WHO have reached the people they were intended to. Health ministers and other government officials have been known to practice “PNF” – People and Family, which means keep some money from donations and give the rest to the people. Other, private organizations skip the middleman, i.e. the government and give directly to the people, which donors find appealing.

            Dr. Schenker, one of our faculty members, who also used to work for the WHO in their HIV/AIDS program, brought us to “the cages,” a part of the organization that isn’t exactly on the tour schedule. In “the cages,” the org keeps copies of all their publications of research, programmes, etc. Many of these copies stay in the cages, undistributed and unread, printed by expensive Swiss publishing firms. The cages embodied a criticism of the WHO levied by many others, that it produces little more than paper.  

            In this landscape, the WHO has assumed more of a coordinating role rather than working on the ground, but I will be curious to see how much longer it maintains that role and if its influence will continue to shrink.  For some of us, this trip to the WHO was a loss of innocence. Despite the idealism of the WHO’s work, we were exposed to the problems it faces and many of the ways the organization has been corrupted. However, even though there are issues, we were always impressed by the individuals we met. They were all passionate, dedicated professionals who cared deeply for their work. This dichotomy between the individual and the larger organization is a theme that we struggled with, and I’m sure that we’ll see it again this semester. 

 The group outside the WHO

 The group at the WHO inside our presentation room

IHP students with Dr. Chan, Director General of the WHO!!!

Geneva

          Wow. What an incredibly busy, exhausting, and exhilarating four days. At the moment, the whole group is on a charter bus traveling from Geneva to Basel, where we’ll spend the next week and a half. I’m getting my first look at the Swiss countryside. It isn’t exactly the idyllic countryside perpetuated on cheese labels, but good god the Alps are gorgeous. They just dominate the skyline as far as the eye can see and are by far and away the largest mountains I have ever seen.

            I have never been anywhere as expensive as Geneva. The narrow, winding streets are lined with wonderful shops, restaurants, and hotels, but if you’re actually going to buy, eat, or sleep anywhere you need to be prepared to spend a fair amount of money. Everyone in the group was just in shock at how quickly money flew out of our pockets.

            That said, you can’t walk through the city without continually stopping to stare with wonder at the beauty all around. The lake itself deserves a day of admiration. Crystal clear, surrounded by mountains, the city from the view of the lake feels like a hidden island of beauty and culture, separate and protected from the rest of the world. At night a string of small lights runs above the shore, forming a wonderful backdrop to the grand, illuminated hotels and the signs atop every building facing the lake.

            Like any good, old European city, every neighborhood is accessible by either the bus or walking. It’s very refreshing after the Twin cities that need a bike or car in order to get anywhere. Unfortunately, our hostel was located in the roughest neighborhood in Geneva, but it was still much better than the rough areas of many American cities and ten minute walk brought us to the luxurious Old Town neighborhood.

            In terms of activities, our overnight flight into the country Saturday night left most people pretty shot for Sunday, but we still managed to get out and explore. On Sundays, almost everything in the country is closed, so we walked the boulevard along the lake with many families and couples and sampled some offerings of the few cafes open. On Monday, we visited the World Health Organization (WHO), on Tuesday we went to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Office of Migration (IOM), and UNAIDS, and today we visited the United Nations (UN) headquarters in Geneva at the Palais des las Nationes. All of these organizations are located within sight of each other in Geneva, which made visiting all of them very easy.   Overall, Geneva’s a great city to spend a few days, but just come prepared to spend a bit of money.  

Some pictures I took...

 The view along the shore of Lake Geneva

 Lake Geneva 

Beautiful buildings in Geneva

 The mountains behind Geneva

And we're off!

     I'm at Trident Books and Cafe in Boston right now with three other kids from the program. We're all taking advantage of the free and fast internet to get our wired fix for the day. Tomorrow afternoon we fly to Switzerland! We land early Sunday morning Swiss time (five hours later than US eastern time) and then we'll be in Geneva for three days visiting the United Nations headquarters and the organizations there, such as the World Health Organization. After that we'll travel to Basel for a week and a half.
      So far, so good! It's very refreshing to be around a new bunch of kids from around the country, and I like them all thus far. Everybody brings something different to the table. Even though there are only five guys, we get along well with each other, which is very good because we'll be rooming together in hostels and home stays. Since I arrived yesterday morning, we've been busy with lots of orientation sessions, group introductions, and the like. We formed committees withing the group and I'm on the exercise committee (to make sure people keep getting proper exercise), so I'm hoping that responsibility helps keep me in shape. We also started two of our classes today and everything there went very well, I'm going to learn and be exposed to a bunch of new things this semester. Having to do homework last night did feel very strange, though.
      The hostel in Boston is a little tight with us five guys in a small room together, but it's a nice place to spend a few days. Having to get ourselves around the area has exposed my lack-of-Boston knowledge, but it's been nice to actually stay in the city. 

Packing, The Adventure

       Just for the record, it is not fun to try to fit four months of clothes and supplies for multiple climates into one medium-sized suitcase, a small backpack, and a larger backpack. We narrowed everything down to the absolute bare bones before trying to put it into the suitcase, but even then it all didn't fit. We're also stuck with what we have because I can only take one suitcase and the blizzard prevents us from going out and buying anything larger. Note to self: Next time, start packing earlier.

      It took myself and my parents an hour of tense discussion, negotiations, and moving stuff around before we finally managed to get everything into the suitcase. I won't have much room at all to bring home souvenirs, unfortunately, but on the plus side, a portable luggage scale is turning out to be one of my most-used and practical Christmas presents.

     I really shudder at the thought of having to pack and unpack as much as I'm going to on this trip.

   

  Four months of supplies and the empty suitcase before any attempts at packing 

Everything in the suitcase and backpack, at last. The suitcase weighs about forty pounds and the backpack weighs a little more than twenty.

Privilege and Travel

      I was on Facebook earlier today and I saw on my homepage that one of my friends had posted a link to the blog, "I Studied Abroad in Africa!" I started reading and couldn't help but laugh. The blog's intro reads,
     "So. 

     You go to one of those fabulously elitist schools where everyone talks about privilege, classism, racism, sexism, etc. as if  they don't practice it in real life. But in order to really see the world, they decide to go somewhere where they can understand what their privilege looks like. So they choose AFRICA! Yay! A whole continent dedicated to helping white people understand what it means to be poor and undeveloped.

    This is for all you fabulous biddies who decided that Africa was the right place for you. There's nothing like good 'ole exotification to fill up your time while basking in the hot Saharan sun, wearing your "traditional" African clothes, eating "weird" foods and taking as many photos of black children as possible. You go, Gurl with lots of privilege! This is dedicated to you."

Most of the rest of the blog is filled with images and entertaining captions, but at points does delve into a deeper discussion of privilege and travel. The blog might go a little too far and might be a little too cynical, yet at the same time it brought these issues of privilege and travel to mind. Honestly, I've been too focused on many of the logistics of traveling to ponder the larger issues of the journey. For one, I'll be traveling with students of some of the most elite schools in the world to areas of extreme poverty. 
        The aforementioned blog made me curious, and so I decided to see what else the internet offered on the subject. A Google search led me to the wonderful blog and book series, "Stuff White People Like," which as it turns out, has a fair amount to say about white people, privilege, and travel. According to the site, white people like, 
          - Traveling  
          - Study Abroad 
          - Knowing What's Best for Poor People
          - Non-Profit Organizations
The entries are funny, and honestly, there's some truth to them. (For a fun game, go down the list with a group of friends and figure out how white each person is) Furthermore, on the trip we'll study natural medicine and have the opportunity to practice yoga, two more on the list.  
      One morning, my dad also stopped me in the kitchen and said, "You know, you're going to see some of the worst poverty in the world on this trip, and as a white person, people are going to tell you it's your fault. Well, it's not. Others are going to make you feel like it's your responsibility to alleviate the poverty, and there's no right answer to that. You're going to have to decide that for yourself."
     To put all of this together, I'm aware of the fact that as a white American tourist, it can be very easy to look and act like a stereotypical white, imperial, American tourist. But as the Africa blog showed, usually anything a white person does can be interpreted as an imperial American tourist. I think the best way to avoid this is to treat everybody I can with respect and as an equal, but at the same time accept my background and what I bring to the table. I don't think it will get anybody anywhere if I feel guilty for being privileged, just as it won't if I pretend to be someone I'm not.  
     Just as I don't want to treat people differently, I also don't want to be treated differently by those around me. For instance, the blog Our Delhi Struggle, by two New Yorkers living in Delhi, wrote a post describing their experiences with 'white privilege' in India. They found that as white people, it was pretty hard to avoid in India and many times they had to insist against being treated preferentially. So overall, I don't want people to think that I'm looking down on them and I don't want people to think they have to treat me like a special citizen. This might be harder to actually practice than I expect, though. 

An Auspicious Start...

      So, it's Wednesday, January 12, and I'm supposed to be in Boston right now at a reception meeting the group, faculty, and program directors. Instead, I'm sitting at home, staring out the window at the 14 inches of snow that a blizzard dropped on the northeast last night and has still not abated. The well-planned orientation session in Boston from the 12th to the 15th is already a mess. The weather will prevent me from getting to Boston until Thursday morning, and other students will make their way into town all of Thursday and Friday. This feels much more like Minnesota than Massachusetts.

My deck covered in snow this morning

My yard covered in snow this morning

The Preparation

        A trip like this requires a fair amount of prep and luckily it's fairly under control for me. My parents found me the greatest suitcase in the world made by Osprey. It has all-terrain wheels, lots of space, can be converted to a backpack when needed, and has a detachable small backpack on the front with many wonderful, small pockets (http://www.ospreypacks.com/detail.php productID=54&colorCode=725&tab=description). I have my visas for India and China all set and flights are all booked by the organization through a travel agent (I'm sure getting thirty eight people on the same eleven flights through thirteen different airports was a really fun time). I have a pretty long, but at the same time sparse, packing list recommended by the organization and I'm working through it, but I really don't know how everything is going to fit into my suitcase. We spent $300 at CVS alone just getting toiletries and basic medicines to last the whole time (lots of Immodium in there). My wardrobe will also be very, very limited due to the packing constraints.  I had an appointment with a travel doctor as well and she gave me some more vaccines (Polio update and Typhoid), as well as some prescription malaria prophylaxis pills.
        Mental prep? Not quite there yet. The whole thing hasn't quite hit me yet. I'm excited to go, I really am, but it feels like everyone I tell about it seems more excited than I do. There are parts of Macalester that I'm really going to miss next semester and this will be the longest I've ever gone without coming home. Despite this, I know this trip is a rare experience that not many people are given the opportunity to undergo and I will do everything I can to get the most out of it.
        I also feel slightly overwhelmed by the fact that we're traveling to four countries. I'm trying to learn about each country and its history and culture, but I could spend my life studying just one part of one country's culture, and feel as if I've only scratched the surface. On top of that, there are a lot of recommended books to prepare us for the general thematic matter of the semester. Sadly, I haven't been able to read any of them yet and I'm not sure if I will be able to. At the same time, when I think about everything a little more, in my daily life I usually participate in a bunch of different activities and can't delve into all of them as much as I would like to, so I guess it's nothing new to me, and maybe that's one of the reasons I picked this program.

The Classes

        Everybody in the group will take four classes this semester: Public Health: From Biology to Policy; Globalization and Health; Health, Culture, and Community; and Community Health Research Methods. Together, the classes are intended to give each student "a broad understanding of the the disciplined that contribute to the study of health and community in a global context. In particular, we focus on the fields of public health, medical anthropology, and political economy." Sounds pretty typical for a Macalester student, right? 

          I gotta admit, I'm really curious and excited to take these classes. They are all subjects I have been wanted to study at Mac, but just haven't had the course room. From working on the pre-departure assignments, I can already tell that these classes will expose me to new material and force me to think and analyze situations in new ways, which is very, very refreshing. 

         Even though the classes have syllabi, the program does not follow regular classroom-based learning. In fact, no days are ever really the same. Most mornings we have lectures or discussions for the classes, but everyday we get out into the community. We might bring local health workers and community leaders to speak with us, do a site visit with a local NGO, or explore the city, but either way we balance structured classes with community engagement. We also partner with local universities and work with their professors and facilities (South Central University in China and the University of Cape Town in South Africa). 

        In my opinion, the professors are the "dark horses" when it comes to the classes. I've heard from past students that it can be hard to find really good teachers who are willing to drop everything for a semester and travel with a bunch of students. They can be very interesting and bright people and professionals, but they may not have the most teaching experience. Despite this reputation, I think my two traveling faculty members look really promising. Adia Benton, PhD, MPH will teach the Health, Culture, and Community and Community Health Research Methods classes and Inon Schenker, PhD, MPH will teach the other two. They both have years of experience studying and working in global health, have lived and worked in many different countries, and have both taught in universities. I'm excited to learn from them. In each country, we'll also have country coordinators and local lecturers to teach us, so everything doesn't fall on Adia and Inon. 

        For course descriptions and faculty bios, check out these links: http://www.ihp.edu/page/faculty/#hc and http://www.ihp.edu/page/courses/#hcsyllabi     

The Group

         The group experience forms one of the most important pieces of the whole trip, at least that's what I've been told by the program. There will be thirty-five students (including myself) on the trip, one traveling IHP fellow (an alum from a couple of years ago), and two traveling faculty members. The students all come from a variety of backgrounds and interests and I'm really excited to meet the other kids in my group. Strangely (in my opinion, at least), I'm the only student on the trip from a college in the Midwest, as most of the students attend colleges on the east coast and a couple hail from the west coast. However, in terms of hometowns, the group is spread all over the country.
          In terms of interests and experiences of the kids, it's a pretty mixed bag. Some students have very strong public health experiences in and out of the classroom. Others, like me, have studied a fair amount of "hard" science, but not much public and global health, and a few others are curious English majors or other social science majors. Many students are interested in attending medical school one day (a few are already accepted into medical schools through early-admission programs), but at the same time others plan to work in the fields of public and global health. Overall, I'm really impressed with the group. Everybody looks to be an a really interesting and accomplished student.
          One interesting note is the gender imbalance of the group. Of the thirty five students, only five of them are male. I like girls and get along with them well, but that's a lot of estrogen for four months. I just hope I get along well with the other guys. I'll find out soon.