Biology Without Borders members reflect on their volunteer experience in Tanzania
College of Biological Sciences undergraduates Jenna Racine, Anh Tran and Karen Kont made their way to Bukoba, Tanzania this summer as Biology Without Borders volunteers. They worked in clinics, helped build a house, worked on a diabetes-awareness project and went on safari. Here’s what they had to say about the experience.
BIO: What motivated you to make the trip?
Jenna: I come from a really small town where everybody is the same and I wanted to experience something different. I’m glad I went; it was a great experience.
Anh: I wanted to experience a different health care system, to learn about different cultures and to throw myself into something new and learn how to adapt to different situations.
BIO: Were there adjustments you had to make once you arrived in Bukoba?
Karen: Half the time our water was black. We had to wait for all the dirt to settle in the bottom of the tank, and then we could use the water on top, but even then we had to filter it and boil it. You learn to appreciate the things that we have at home and that you can actually live without a lot of stuff.
BIO: One of the reasons you went on this trip was to gain hands-on clinical experience. What kind of work did you do as volunteers?
Karen: We shadowed doctors and nurses in the HIV ward at the Kikari Regional Hospital.
Anh: We also got to sit in on HIV consultations and testing, something we’d never be able to do here at home. On one particular day there were nine patients being tested for HIV. In one case, a woman was being tested. The nurse called her husband in to give the result. To see him get the negative result and be so happy was an amazing experience. We also saw a young woman being told she tested positive, another experience we definitely would not have in America.
Jenna: Tanzania is very good with HIV counseling. All pregnant women are now tested two or three times before they have their babies.
BIO: You decided to work on a volunteer project related to diabetes awareness. Talk about what you did in that regard.
Anh: We thought that it would be cool to go to another country to help, but it’s also important to us to address issues in our own backyard. Diabetes is a huge problem in the United States and we can tackle it, we can work with the people in Bukoba and, at the same time, address the issue here at home. I think it makes our project more sustainable and more worthwhile.
Karen: The group that we worked with is called the Bukoba Disabled Assistance Project. They made key chains out of goatskin. A blue circle—a symbol for diabetes—is painted on one side. On the other side it has a Tanzanian flag. The project will help provide a source of income for them.
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