HI ALL! 

MY FIRST BLOG!

I've decided to try this because I'm off to a new place in the world and want to share it with family, friends, and global health colleagues and students.

Traveling keeps me young or at least younger; it keeps me alive, not just literally, but figurative. My most recent travels have taken me to Latin America -- Mexico, Chile, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Peru, and Argentina. I love speaking Spanish and being engulfed in the warmth of Latin culture, music, dance, food, family-oriented society, etc. 

I have also traveled and lived in different parts of Europe -- Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain. My German is rusty but . . . it's still there, even if my vocabulary "gibs nichts mehr". 

But this Saturday, May 26th, 2012, I'm off to India for the first time! I'm going to see and experience only a small part of this enormous subcontinent (as they call it). Mostly I'll be in the provinces of Gujarat and Maharashtra in western India and then to Delhi. 

My colleague, Sara Sequin, and I will travel first to Ahmedabad, where we will visit a Public Health Foundation of India's http://phfi.org/about-us public health smoking cessation program. 

Then we will spend the next five days in Dhrangadhra. This is the location of Temple University's Study Abroad India program, directed by Dr. Jayasinhji Jhala (otherwise known as Bapa). He is a professor of Anthropology but in Dhrangadhra he is royalty. (More about that later.) He is a visual communication anthropologist who produces, directs, films, and edits ethnographic films. And for part of the next two weeks, he is going to be my teacher of everything India.  I understand from Dr. Jhala that the community is working to develop a community center for a women’s caste organization as well as a water pipeline for the community.  I’d like to explore how Temple’s faculty and students might be able to work on these kinds of public health projects. 

Dr. Jayasinhji (Bapa) Jhala

Then Sara and I will be traveling to Pune, just southeast of Mumbai, where Sara and I will live for two days with a host family, curtsy of the Alliance for Global Education http://www.allianceglobaled.org/india/pune/contemporary-india. They have a program in Development, Environment, and Public Health and examine the most pressing public health issues facing India today.  

 Then we will be off to Delhi, where we will meet and stay at the visitor center of SIT Study Abroad Program http://www.sit.edu/studyabroad/ssa_inh.cfm.

that focuses on traditional medicine, and health and human rights issues. Then we will travel to Agra, to visit the Taj Mahal on our last day in India. 

So, stay tuned for more about these places and event.