The Next Adventure
I spent most of 2016 travelling. I road tripped from Columbus, Ohio to Miami, Florida. I spent over a month in India meeting extended family and going to ancient sites. And I spent almost 5 months in Amsterdam studying abroad, and then spent almost 2 months backpacking around Europe. All before I spent my fall semester at Northeastern. A lot of my motivation and mentality for this Dialogue is a result of my experiences in 2016.
For example, in Amsterdam, I shared a kitchen and living room with 15 people from 14 countries, and had friends from basically everywhere — South Africa, Curacao, the Philippines and many more. Everyone constantly had cool stories to tell about their homes, cultures, and travel experiences. In the Netherlands, I began to embody aspects of the Dutch culture, but in the context of all the international people I was surrounded by. I constantly ate Dutch meals and other international meals from my friends in my building. I learned tons of phrases from languages around the world. And my backpacking trip around Europe doubled-down on this great experience.
I used hitchhiking apps to travel through Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal meeting tons of fascinating people along the way. I got to visit on of my study abroad friends in a little French town called LaRoche-Sur-Yon where his family threw a party and made me a 5 course French dinner. I stayed in crazy Hostels, small and large that covered the spectrum of wild people to be friends with.
After all of this, I really wanted to keep the adventure going. I hadn’t boarded my flight back home before I was searching for cheap flights to my next destinations. I made it a bit of a mental mission to enjoy all the continents (Antarctica might be an exception — we’ll see) as soon as pragmatically possible. I looked through my required courses for graduation, and I figured out I could squeeze a Dialogue in somewhere. I wanted to chose a place I probably wouldn’t otherwise go that had academic content that I am actually interested in. The Health Systems, Services, and Education in Ghana Dialogue stuck out to me as a perfect choice. I could go to a completely unknown location for me and further my interest in how health systems work around the world.
So in Ghana, I really want to have a genuine appreciation and feel for the particular things (the food, the language) and the big ideas (how cultures fix social problems, how equally resources are distributed) in the areas we’re going to. I hope I can get this by connecting with the students and professors we’ll be meeting with and learning from both their perspectives. I hope I can get an on-the-ground appreciation for Ghana, like I feel I did in Amsterdam. All these goals require me having an open mind and being willing to learn and adapt with others.
Right now, I don’t really have any fears. I feel like I have enough of a grasp on life in underdeveloped countries and on travelling around to unknown places to be able to navigate a well planned out month with 20 other people. But I do have a lot of general excitement. I think this can be a great opportunity to learn about another culture, learn about how other people cope with travelling, and genuinely enjoy a month in the currently unknown.
