Hi and welcome to my site!
I am a junior at Dartmouth College studying Anthropology modified with Global Health and Spanish modified with Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. My hope is to go to medical school one day to work in Primary Care and with underserved populations. For right now, I am enjoying building up a very interdisciplinary toolbox that I hope to use to apply to that narrower focus one day. One of the ways that I am learning a lot more about stories, health, development, Spanish, history, etc. is through the experience detailed in this blog.
LACS 20 and the CCESP program allow me to further explore and see the interplay within many of my primary academic interests through one experience. Having read a lot about the social, cultural, economic and humanitarian harm of international aid projects, this project initially captured my attention because of the structures it has in place to combat the typical structural violence inherent of such projects. LACS 20 provides a way for students to begin to understand and appreciate the Nicaraguan culture (past, present and future) to be able to partake in a bidirectional participatory relationship/ collaboration and practice cultural humility. By being more culturally competent and aware of the intricacies of service, we can think about our responsibilities as privileged global citizens and what our role may and may not be. The course also addresses topics that have been on my mind a lot lately as I’ve learned much more about community health, global health, and frameworks of vulnerability and power, such as altruism/ doing “service” and being a “good person”, the (blurry) line between volunteerism, tourism and markets, helping and aid vs. collaborating and building partnerships, the ephemeralness of dedicated emotions and efforts to causes, how culture affects what we see and don't, grassroots and bottom-up approaches, and so much more. I am excited to continue to study these and really believe that this course will best allow me to understand the experience I will have in Nicaragua and allow it to impact my future direction in community health. I hope that we will have impactful and interesting discussions in class that will continue in Nicaragua. I expect that as such an interdisciplinary group, we will all have something different to contribute that will make the conversations new for all of us. I am also excited to learn about the historical and current dynamics and situation of the people of a country I know very little about through studying the art, history, narratives, geography, and people of the country.
I was also attracted to the CCESP program because it is also effective in the way that it allows students to be a part of a larger and continuous structure (with the partnerships in Siuna and Bridges to Community, and reflection component) and prepare them to understand and hopefully overcome the barriers of language, privilege, prescribed social roles, and our own cultural opinions. I am particularly looking forward to being able to combine my interests in people and Medical Anthropology in this clinic, apply my appreciation of the language and culture with healthcare, work with and learn from my classmates, the doctors, and the people in Nicaragua, and get to be a part of this experiential opportunity unique in the frameworks it has for us to learn as much as possible from our experiences. This seems to be particularly true with the ethnographic and maternal health focus of the projects that may be concurrently happening and I hope that there will be opportunities to be involved. As a Spanish modified with Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Anthropology double major interested in medicine, I think that this will be a one of a kind opportunity to combine and apply what I have studied at Dartmouth, and push myself to apply much of the ethics I have studied. I hope and expect to be intellectually and emotionally challenged by the experience, and I'm excited!
