Yesterday ended up being quite the late night followed by another busy day. We spent our class time talking about my topic area, GI disease. Something that we might not think about here in the US is diarrheal disease, which actually is one of the main killers of children around the world. This is the result of fecal to oral transmission of bad stuff-- through unsafe drinking water, contaminated food, or kids just playing and crawling in unsanitary places, among other things. And, to state the obvious, addressing these issues is hard. We want to tackle the problem before it becomes a problem...but how do you effectively change behavior? Some of the things we've been talking about are school-based interventions where children are taught hygiene skills and can them bring them home. And using the ICTPH guides to educate parents about sanitation and safe drinking water. While a lot of these ideas aren't necessarily addressing the systemic issue (dirty water and practices that dirty it), I'm not sure how to tackle those issues at this point. It seems like the government would have to be involved, and, as discussed, that's not an option at this point. So what's the balance between at least fixing a piece or two of the issue and focusing your efforts and getting the underlying issues figured out??
Later we celebrated some birthdays with our class and the ICTPH staff. It's been great to get to know some of the staff better. They have really enriched our learning and also become friends here. It's really cool to hear about what they have been working on here and before they came to ICTPH. I'm getting more ideas about all the great opportunities out there through their work...maybe crafting a plan for next year...but I'm sort of convinced that having some master plan isn't really the way to go...
More interesting than these thoughts though--we got to have one of my favorite dishes, paneer tikka masala. I know I keep saying this, but the food is just so amazing!! I seriously have not eating so much in a long time. I mean, I'm exempt from the healthy thing as a social worker, right...?
And today...
We spent the morning talking about oral cancer. We learned how to perform a basic exam to detect irregularities on the head and neck. As in the US, tobacco is a leading determinant of oral cancers. Yuckkkkkky. But the other big thing is that, in rural areas, many people use tobacco to suppress hunger while working in the fields. This poses an interesting question about how to address this problem in addition to actual tobacco awareness and cessation...
After class we hopped into the vans and made our way to Ponducherry. Driving through the Indian countryside was wonderful. We got to observe the entire sunset. It was a great time to just watch the landscape and little villages we passed through for hours. Popped in some of my favorite music and thought about how some of the social change being expressed might be similar to the changes India is currently going through...population growth, class struggles, food shortages, environmental degradation, political corruption and lots of educated, engaged young people...
the times they are a changing...
(sorry, cliche. couldn't resist.)
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