大流行期间出国留学:肯尼亚基苏木

The last academic year was full of uncertainty for the Saint Michael’s College community. 然而, a few of the members in our community decided to amplify the unpredictability by studying abroad in midst of the pandemic. 科尔布玛弗, 2022届毕业生, was among the few who were able to study abroad their junior year in the spring of 2021.

“Reading and learning about disease in a place far removed from the diseases themselves is a much different experience from learning about disease in a place where you are incredibly vulnerable to them,22岁的梅芙·科尔布说, 十大赌博靠谱网络平台政治学专业毕业于老莱姆, CT.

Kolb found fulfillment in unexpected ways when she ventured out of the traditional classroom structure of the Saint Michael’s campus to study public health issues in Kenya through a program of the Vermont-based School for International Training that emphasizes experiential, 非传统学习.

As was true for other students profiled earlier in this series — Olivia Hansen with an SIT program in Iceland, 或Alexyah Dethvongsa, who ended up in Nepal through SIT rather than in India as she originally planned — Kolb had to be adaptable to last-minute changes because of the pandemic.

Before COVID came along, Kolb had planned to study post-genocide restoration in Kigali, Rwanda. 然而, 节目在最后一刻被取消了, 所以她最后在基苏木做公共卫生项目, 肯尼亚相反.

“我绝对不后悔在这段时间出国留学, even though it wasn’t the country or program I had originally planned to attend,”她说。. “I think that there was a lot of value in researching public health amid the COVID-19 pandemic, 我喜欢在国内的经历.”

She said that being faced with uncertainty and sudden change “was sort of par for the course in the pandemic anyway, so the sensations weren’t unlike what we have all been experiencing for the last year and a half. It was possibly a slightly stranger transition than what I had personally experienced before in the pandemic, just because it was a whole other culture that I was not familiar with that I had suddenly planned to spend four months in.”

和她项目的其他成员一起学习语言.

A typical day for Kolb included the five members in the program leaving and walking a few miles to a class to learn Kiswahili [a native 语言 in Kenya, 有时被称为斯瓦希里语]. The group would sit outside with their Kiswahili teacher, Walter, for about 90 minutes. “我们还有一位‘管家’,塞西莉亚叫道。, who would make us tea and Kenyan snacks in the SIT building after we were done with class,”她说。. “我们经常吃Chapati这样的食物, 玉米粉, 在其他食物中，mdazi通常伴随着非洲茶.”

“After this, we would usually Zoom into our other four classes with Dr. 万迪加，然后出去散步, 或者乘嘟嘟车(一种交通方式)穿过城镇去实习. Most of our time was spent in the Kisumu County Referral Hospital where we did a lot of observation and data entry,科尔布说. 离开医院后, we would usually grab a bite to eat at Java [essentially an East African Starbucks] with friends from the hospital before heading home. Some evenings we stayed in to work on our research projects and homework assignments, and other nights we would head to a place called Dunga Hill Camp—a quasi-restaurant on Lake Victoria.”

在肯尼亚生活时, Kolb noticed a huge difference between the attitude around the pandemic versus the United States. “根据赤道附近气候的性质, everything is quite spaced out and many things were permanently outdoors. 也, 考虑到肯尼亚的平均年龄约为19岁, the morbidity and fatality rates of COVID-19 were drastically lower there,”她说。. 结果是, the COVID-19 pandemic seemed insignificant compared to the other epidemics Kisumu is faced with — malaria, 艾滋病毒/艾滋病, 肺结核, 例如“

“Masks in certain settings were not only hard to find, but they were also very taboo. The assumption was that if you are wearing a mask, you must have COVID-19. 其他地方，比如我们工作的医院，需要它们. The police force was also heavily involved in enforcing the mask mandate and 8:30 p.m. 宵禁. 不幸的是, the current laws surrounding COVID-19 have only fueled the rampant corruption in the Kenyan police force,科尔布说.

Pharmacies in in the area of Kenya where 科尔布玛弗 studied have a different look and feel from in the U.S.

鉴于流行病学是科尔布研究的主要焦点, “disease was also something ever-present in my daily life during those few months. 睡在蚊帐下面, 用水瓶刷牙, 戴口罩预防肺结核, 与许多艾滋病毒阳性患者一起工作对我来说是一个巨大的障碍,”她说。.

“我们所有人都被迫面对人性, 正如我们在这次大流行中所做的那样, 在某种程度上，我认为这是一种转变. It really wasn’t until I started making friends there that it all began to feel like a normal part of this new little life we had created,”她说。. “This transition from initial feelings of fear and discomfort to really feeling like Kisumu was home was an incredible journey to see myself—and the other students—go through. Ultimately, I learned a lot about myself in relation to others and the world.”

In the end, Kolb believes if one has an opportunity to study abroad, one should take it. “Being able to form relationships and routines within the bounds of another culture is a real privilege. 它以意想不到的方式挑战你，触动你，”她说.

梅芙拍摄的非洲街景.