Brussels, Bruges and a First Class Flight.,

Alas, my resolve has failed me yet again, and sadly it is you dear readers who end up paying the price. Please accept my sincerest apologizes for making a promise I have not kept. In order to avoid further disappointment I am simply going to not make any more promises about how frequently I will post. Who knows, I may end up posting more than before. It’s amazing how much obligation can change how we view a task. Take reading for example. In school, it was inevitable that if I was required to read a book, I enjoyed it much less that books I chose to read on my own volition. As a second example, look at chores. When I chose to clean my room, the task was carried out much more joyously than if I was forced to clean it. The lesson in all of this: figure out how to motivate people to do what you want them to do, but have them do it by their own inspiration. I will call this is the “Task Theory” for when this line of thinking is formally recognized and becomes famous. (Or maybe it already is formalized and I just don’t know about it, which seems to happen to most of my great ideas.)

At the moment, my current location is approximately one mile away from one of the wonders of our modern world: The Panama Canal. I arrived in Panama last Saturday and just finished my first week of work as an intern at UNICEF. I half expected to arrive and quickly become disillusioned by the bureaucracy of a large international institution. I find, to my happy surprise, the opposite to be true. The people with whom I work are dedicated and brilliant. They truly believe in the importance of what they are doing and seem to genuinely enjoy being in the office everyday. It is very refreshing. I am tasked with preparing the curriculum for an upcoming workshop my group is hosting on cluster coordination. To fill you in, I am working as a part of the emergency response group specifically in the water and sanitation (WASH) sector. The humanitarian aid community recently (i.e. 4 years ago) adopted a new approach to emergency response called cluster coordination. The goal is make sure there are no major gaps in humanitarian response like there have been in the past. The cluster approach is mainly an organizational tool. With innumerable humanitarian actors working in the field (governments, UN agencies, Red Cross, and large and small NGOs) it is hard to coordinate to make sure everyone affected is reached and efforts are not duplicated. The workshop we are holding is intended to train people to lead the WASH cluster in the event of an emergency. The great part is since I am working on this training, I myself will know the material!

The people at work have been very welcoming and I know these seven weeks will simply fly by. I am happy to say I am looking forward to getting back to Stanford. I don’t yet know what I want to do as far as degree choices go. However, I recently came to the revelation that I have been thinking too much about myself. How do I get ahead? What is best for me? How do I pursue my passion? I was also feeling frustrated that I didn’t have someone to share this sort of decision with. Then it struck me. I had been leaving God completely out of the picture. The maker of the universe cares about me and wants to share in my future. What’s more, as much as I want success, what he wants for me is even greater. I am working to take my eyes off myself and look to God. What I need to be asking is, How is what I am doing bringing glory to God? How can my passions be used to bring to light issues that God desires me to tackle? I am thankful for this clarity of thought, but also fear that I won’t know how to apply it. One step at a time is how it will have to be. For now, I am going to finish my internship continuing to build up knowledge and seek clarity for what path I should be taking in my studies. I’m also going to try and stop focusing on myself and try to be a blessing in other’s lives in how I treat them and in what I say. My prayer is that I can be the salt and light to others that God intends me to be. I know that was pretty heavy, but its seems like it has been so long since God laid something like that on my heart and I felt I needed to share it.

My last post to you was from Brussels highlighting some of the more interesting things about the city. I have to say my time in that city was magical. I felt so carefree and happy. I would go to class each day, work out, have dinner, and then either read, do some work, or go sight seeing. I also started going to bed earlier which made getting up in the mornings for class much easier. I genuinely liked getting up, dressing nicely, walking to the metro and going to class, which in my mind was the equivalent of going to work. I always dressed very professionally and took my enrollment in the course very seriously.

Oh, I just found a note I left for myself to tell you about Le Lout. I was out running one day and had to stop for like 3 minutes while a herd of cows finished crossing the road. In the city you get stopped by trains and traffic lights, in the country you get stopped my cow crossings. Quite the parallel. By the way, cows are very large up close. I considered trying to cut through, but the thought of being run down by one of those beasts was enough to keep me waiting.

Back to Brussels. I felt I really learned a lot about public health in emergencies. They seemed to focus a lot on complex emergencies which are situations like in Darfur, Sudan, Somalia, and other places where you have protracted conflicts. The thing I liked the most was being around people who were interested in the same things I was. I realized that what I had been calling disaster response is really humanitarian aid, assistance intended to save lives. This differs from development aid that is intended to spur societal advancements. Both interest me and I am wrestling with which sector I really want to pursue. What is becoming more and more clear is that after an acute disaster like a hurricane or flood, the local capacity to respond is really where the life saving occurs. The only way to help in those situations is to work towards better preparedness and that is best achieved through effective development efforts. In the course I learned about epidemiology and public health. This fascinates me because I see the obvious link to water. My adviser at Stanford actually got her PhD in public health and that switched on a light bulb for me. Public health is all about finding trends and working to improve the overall well being of a population. It seems a lot like detective work and that intrigues me.

The people at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters were great. They were motivated and excited about their work. I really enjoyed talking with director over lunch. I talked to her about my interests and sought her advice. She was wonderful in her insights and presented me with an experienced prospective. Throughout the course, we had several really great speakers come and talk to us. The stories they told of conducting surveys following the Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and in Darfur were really amazing. It sounded so adventurous. One other thing I noticed was that the most of the participants, who had a whole range of experiences and ages, were not married. The presenters, however, were. What was the difference? The participants were on the ground each day working overseas. The presenters were researchers working abroad on and off. I want to travel and have adventures, but I’m not sure at what cost I’m willing to pay for that. In any case, it was an amusing observation. At least I realized the consequences of my potential choices before I’m have to make them instead of looking back in ten years and being like, “shoot?! what have I done?” Moving on. As part of the course, I worked with a group to make a presentation on how complex emergencies impact health care systems. I did a lot of the work, but did it willingly. Groups always need a leader so I stepped up to the plate. We laid out a plan to begin with and then divided up the work. The following week we came back together, discussed what we had done, and I integrated the work, comments, and reflections into a final presentation. In the end I know people really liked ours because we were each allowed to request print outs of two posters. Our poster got the most requests ;) The other aspect of the course that I really appreciated was that the participants really participated! We had really great discussions during the sessions. As I have learned at Stanford, this is not always the case and I should not take constructive dialogue for granted!

I posted the presentation in .pdf format online if you are interested in checking it out. I would recommend taking a minute and looking over the slides. You might just learn something new...

Impacts of Complex Emergencies on Health Systems Presentation

Aside from the class, the other highlights of Belgium include seeing Bruges, a well preserved medieval city. I went there the first Saturday I was in Belgium. There is a movie called In Bruges about two assassins who end up in Bruges that I watched while I was in France. The movie was totally violent so I wouldn’t recommend it. However, it was shot on location in Bruges so it was cool to recognize places from the movie. Recognizing places from a movie also happened yesterday in Panama City while I was out walking about in Casco Viejo. The fancy party scene in the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace is held in Casco Viejo. Here’s a picture of the place below.


Maybe you’ll recognize it. If not, go back and watch the movie. So yes, Bruges was very beautiful. I climbed the 360 steps to the top of the bell tower. To my disappointment, the view was not very good and the staircases are all spiral which after 360 steps is enough to make even someone with an iron constitution feel a bit woozy. I also took a nice little boat ride through the canals and shot lots of pictures. There was also happened to be a huge flea market going on the day I visited. It was fun to look through all the antiques. It’s amazing how much European junk looks just like American junk, just even older ;)



The second weekend I was visited by my good friend Raj for a time on Saturday. He is living in London now and was able to plan his trip to Amsterdam with a 5 hour stop over in Brussels to say hi. It was fun walking around with him and his friends. We enjoyed some authentic Belgium waffles and sampled some fine Belgium beers. Let it be known that beer is kind of an obsession in Belgium. They have over 240 different brews. My favorites are the sweet beers, naturally, and the fruit flavored ones! I know! I was so surprised myself, but they are good :) Bars in Belgium are not sketchy like in the states. They aren’t night clubs where people are getting trashed. They are simply social hangouts. Oh and the other things. SO many people in Belgium smoke. I don’t get it. The cigarettes are very expensive and it destroys your lungs. It seems like all of Europe missed the memo about smoking slowly killing you. The sister-in-law of the owner of the bed and breakfast where I worked in France smoked all the time. She had such a terrible smoker’s cough she had trouble communicating sometimes. Seems like a high price to pay if you ask me.

On Sunday I took a train out of Ghent to visit my friend Bart from Stanford. He is from Ghent and was kind enough to give me a lovely tour of the sights. Not only does Belgium have fruit flavored beer, in Ghent, Bart introduced me to flower flavored ice cream! It was amazing. I had violet ice cream. Can you even imagine?! We went through the restored castle and had lunch at a great Turkish restaurant. Did you know there is such a thing as Turkish pizza. There is and it is really delicious. The trip I want to take is to visit Turkey. I really wanted to go there before, but now that I had that pizza, I really want to go! It was nice to tour a new city with someone. I have become so accustomed to be traveling by myself I forgot how nice it is to share with someone :) I didn’t, however, take any pictures of Ghent while I was there. I realized I can’t do both; Tour with someone else and take pictures. Taking pictures takes all of my focus. On my last day in Brussels I went out and took pictures all over the main parts of the city. They are posted below. I’m in the process of coming up with a name for an online portfolio. I’d like to transform my hobby into an extra income generator. Let me know if you have any ideas. I want the name to sound refined yet traveled.



Sunday night I also went and met up with the cousin of my friend Sebastien from Stanford. The cousin just finished his master’s degree in energy studies. We went out for a drink and he gave me some great tips about places to visit in the city. Namely, Luxembourg Place where the European Union Parliament is located and the Old English music museum where there is a restaurant on the top floor with sweeping views of the city. I made it up there just in time one day after class when we go out early. One down side about the city is that everything closes really early! It’s hard to do anything after 5pm.

I had a wonderful time going running through the various parks and along the canal. I really feel like by running I can get a great feel for a place. One morning I got up and did a long run visiting each of the cities three major parks. I did that when I was staying in London several years ago. I call them park hopping runs. They are really fun and leave you feeling very accomplished. My running has been coming along nicely. I’m back in shape to the point where I am looking forward to getting out each day. The very mild temperatures in Brussels also helped that. In Panama it is unbelievably hot. I am going to bed by 10:30 so I can get up at 6:30 to run. By 7:30am it’s almost too hot to go. I learned that today. I slept in and didn’t get out until 8:30. I was doing my long run as well. When I got back at 9:40am it was like I had already taken a shower I was so drenched in sweat.

In the interest of your time and my sanity, I’m going to wrap up my post here. On my way from Brussels to Panama I had to take two flights, Brussels to Newark, Newark to Panama City. I’ll have you know one of my dreams in life is to fly first class on a long haul transatlantic flight. Little did I know, my dream would be realized long before I ever thought possible. Waiting to board the flight in Brussels my name is called and I’m asked to come to the front desk. The lady looks at me, “Sara?”, she smiles, “You’re going first class on this flight.” I couldn’t believe it. I thanked her, still somewhat in unbelief at this amazing blessing and took my new boarding pass. Seat 1E. Those eight hours from Brussels to Newark were some of the nicest I’ve had in a long time. The service in First Class was incredible. There was nothing they didn’t offer you. There was a five course meal finished off with ice cream sundaes. No plastic utensils and you didn’t have to hold onto your plastic cup for an annoying 20 minutes after you finish your drink waiting for the stewardess to by again. There was no one asking you to get up so they can get to the restroom, and you, yourself, being able to get up and go when you pleased. All free movies with the in-flight entertainment system. Fresh cookies and a seat that reclined with a foot rest that came up making you feel more comfortable than you ever thought possible on an airplane. Dear friends, I have experienced the way the elite travel and for the first time in my life contemplated pursuing extreme wealth in and of itself as a career. What a way to end four weeks that are without comparison.

As a preview of what is to come, on Friday I went to visit the Miraflores locks on The Panama Canal (which I can see from my office space). As a civil engineer, I have to admit, I was smitten.