Advice Reflection

Coming home after being away for two months has been an adjustment. I feel as though I have changed yet everything and everyone around me has stayed exactly the same. When asked about my experience this summer it is hard to describe because I can’t really put into words what I have experienced in entirety this summer. This morning my mom was joking this summer is going to be your summer at band camp where in conversation you bring up “this one time in Africa.” At this comment, I realized how true it actually was, this summer is going to be such a fundamental part of who I am and what I have learned is an integral experience that I will draw upon for the rest of my life.

Telling all my stories to my friends and family has really reinforced what an amazing summer this has been. I tell them how I took bucket showers for a month, how we boiled our own bath water, how I rode the minibus, about the food and the people and it amazes people yet that was my daily life for two months and I have become so accustomed to it. I gave my aunt the basic run down of my experiences and she responded “you are ready to conquer the world! I’m so impressed and now for the rest of your life when you think you can’t do something you can remember what you accomplished this summer.”

The most profound things I got out of this summer were not lessons about research or global health but lessons about myself. During this summer, I had not had this much free time to do things for myself in a long time. My experiences this summer allowed me to learn fundamental things about myself, I realized how much I concerned myself worrying over trivial things. Being so removed from my life at home allowed me to get perspective on what really matters, what I am passionate about and what makes me happy. I think that there are important things to learn from how other cultures live their daily lives and my time in Zambia gave me a refreshing perspective on this. This is why I feel like I am having to reintegrate myself into my old daily life. It is hard to reconcile and adjust who I am now as I feel I have grown and learned a great deal, back into my life from before. It is difficult to adjust having had this profound experience and the vast majority of my friends and family not truly understanding what I went through and all that I saw. Over time the two parts of me will slowly converge seamlessly but this will always be my band camp story.

The most important piece of advice I could give would be to truly dive in and fully invest yourself in your experience in Zambia. Although this is cliché, the most important thing that I did was try and take in everything I was experiencing and make the most of it. I wanted to take advantage of everything I could experience and learn from my short time in Zambia and it payed off. The experiences I had and the relationships I have made are because I chose to take in all I was experiencing and make the most of it. As the research became more intense and you begin to write it is important that you keep this in mind. Don’t lose sight of all that Zambia has to offer because of the research that you are doing. Be proactive about your research but take time to enjoy your time in Zambia as well, it is short so make the most of the time you have.