Yes the 'west' has rural areas.
Giant rural areas, filled with poor people who cannot access healthcare or education.
Yeah it exists.
While I am in this country I plan to spend a lot of time studying and working in rural areas because I understand that any area has problems that they seek to find solutions to. And my goal is to learn some of their solutions from being just so physically distanced from the 'west' from the resources and healthcare in their cities.
Anyway, interesting thing about where I went, they don't want me to talking about it, they feel there is the potential that I will insult them online, so they have rules about what I can say online.
This is the first thing I learned from them. I really liked that they control the information out there about them. I wish we did that.
Something I plan to invest in in the future, is taking country of our image online, being the ones who fill in the Wikipedia pages about us (for instance).
In respect of there requests I will only list extremely general lessons I learn, I don't wish to make enemies with people I respect so highly.
Suffice it to say, I am in a 'developed' country with a life expectancy of over 70, and every one has lots of money and in class they tell us about diseases that are never seen in this country anymore except in 'third world' countries, but..
-Here you will find 'third world' conditions, and mentality, the idea that there is little hope and little to expect from the future.
- Annoying you also hear a conversation that goes, 'In a country like this one, it is embarrassing to find third world conditions'
Which basically suggest we should be ashamed of our diseases, generally the idea of 'third world conditions' is directly linked to things associated either with fecal-oral transfer, or dirty water, parasites, there is this association with dirt (sorry side tracked, but seriously there is this idea that we are dirty, so we get dirty diseases!! UGHHH, has anyone noticed this, it can't just be me)
These are not 'third world conditions' we didn't bring them here, they were here of their own accord, and therefore these are first world disease aren't they?!?
It's really interesting to hear the dialogue in this country that defines itself in a particular way and then adds on this little appendix.
'We are first world, except for that corner of there"
We have no TB, AIDS, or -insert 'third world disease here- except in refugees and that corner over there'
This is frustrating. But being frustrated and insulted doesn't mean I am not paying attention and seeking to learn. I am learning very interesting things about point of care testing, about getting specialist care access to people far away from specialists but in areas that are sparsely populated so that you can't pay a specialist full time to be there.
Emergency care is also something that's very complicated when you are located far away from a tertiary care centre.
It's all extremely interesting and I am taking notes, taking pictures and taking brochures for when I will work to implement similar (but obviously different) practices in rural Zambia.
