SPH student experiences: a semester in Southeast Asia
| September 02, 2009 | |
Julia Wood takes a cooking class in Bangkok, Thailand.
A semester in Southeast Asia transformed my understanding of that region of the world. I look back on the five months I spent there and cannot even begin to express everything I saw, learned, felt, experienced, heard, and smelled. I chanted with nuns at 5:30 in the morning, learned how to cook som tum (papaya salad), inhaled spices every time I left my dorm, saw prostitutes in the red light districts, and learned about health inequalities in Thailand. I climbed to the Golden Rock in Burma, visited the killing fields in Cambodia, crawled through trenches in Vietnam, rode on elephants in Laos, and saw hundreds of Buddha statues everywhere I went. It was a semester abroad filled with smells and sounds that shocked my senses and tough realities that continue to inspire me to make an active difference. The most fascinating, yet challenging trip I took in Southeast Asia was to Burma. The country has been in a time warp for more than a generation. The buildings are crumbling, the cars are moving boxes of rusted metal, and the air is thick with pollution. The women paint thanaka, a yellow paint, on their cheeks to protect them from the sun and evil spirits. The men have red teeth from chewing a tobacco substance called betel. Thousands of people live in slums and struggle to find food. Work and money are hard to come by for people in Burma. Our tour guide, Kin, informed us that his nine year old daughter had recently dropped out of school to sell food on the street with his wife to help support the family. The State Law and Order Restoration government has oppressed the Burmese people causing many to flee from their homes to neighboring countries. Yet despite all this, I saw incredible strength and determination in many of the Burmese people that I crossed paths with during this trip. I saw these people live life with a sense of hope and joy despite extreme suffering and persecution. I felt so humbled, as if I had previously been oblivious as to how to truly live joyfully, and I came away with a new dimension added on to my perception of global suffering-one of inspiration.
After my trip to Burma I participated in a three-week course on the social inequalities in the health and health care systems in Thailand and Malaysia led by Dr. Trude Bennett, a professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. During these three weeks we visited private and public hospitals and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in both Malaysia and Thailand. I was motivated by the doctors, activists, economists, and professors that passionately shared the goals and accomplishments of their organizations. It was exciting to have the opportunity to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of different health systems with such knowledgeable people. It was inspiring to learn about the strides various organizations were taking to combat the inequalities within the health care systems throughout Southeast Asia. The knowledge I gained enabled me to mold what was previously an abstract passion into a more focused and concrete set of goals regarding global public health.
Rice noodles drying in Vietnam.
As a result of my trip to Burma and studies of the inequalities in the health and heath care systems I became interested in further researching the health of migrant workers in Thailand. With the politically tumultuous situation in Burma an increased number of migrant workers have fled to Thailand in the past decade. Unfortunately, Burmese migrant workers are escaping from their lives of poverty and persecution only to arrive in a country that is a breeding ground for disease and unsafe working conditions. Due to illegal status, the language barrier, and financial expenses migrant workers do not have sufficient access to health care in Thailand. The Thai government and NGOs have made efforts to address this inequality, but it is imperative that further research and changes be made to the current situation. <div”> I value everything I learned during my semester abroad from the smells and sounds of Southeast Asia to the plight of migrant workers. My semester broadened my understandings of the world and has inspired me to learn about the social inequalities within the health care systems both in the United States and abroad. I owe my thanks to Ambassador Phillips whose gracious scholarship made this life-changing experience possible.
Julia Wood is a senior BSPH student in Health Policy and Management from Pittsboro, N.C. She received a Phillips Ambassadors scholarship to study abroad in Thailand through the UNC Semester in Southeast Asia program.
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