Danita W.

Public Health Volunteer

Goa, India

My chosen assignment was the after school care of nine children infected with HIV. The names of the 7 boys were Santosh, Shanku, Pawan, Krishna, Rahul, Mahesh, Milroy, and the two girls Sakshi and Laxmi. The bond that I formed with those children is one I will never forget.

In the beginning I was sad for them, I cried for them, and all I could think of was how short their lives would be. As the weeks went on and I felt more and more comfortable with their situation I realized that they are just rowdy children who don’t want to do their homework and do their best to get out of eating foods that aren’t their favorites.

They changed me. They opened my eyes and allowed me to respect and appreciate the frailty of life. They were joyous children completely ignorant of anything but how happy they were to play after snack time. With them I didn’t see the differences in culture or lifestyle. I just saw extremely happy children who got the short end of the stick. It is because of them that I realized the entire purpose of my trip. I now know that I want to be a doctor and there is absolutely nothing that can keep me from that goal. I now understand how silly I was for giving up my passion so quickly. I want to become a doctor to help them. I want them to have the longest and most comfortable lives possible. I want for them, and the many children like them, to die with dignity having not wasted away because there was no one who cared enough to get them real care.

The time I spent in India has made me a global citizen in two ways, one that I was expecting and another that I was not expecting. Firstly, I know that I want to devote my life to the fair treatment of children and especially women. Just because it is a cultural standard for women to be second-class citizens doesn’t mean that that’s the way it should be in the 21st century. Some traditions need to be reevaluated and changed accordingly. And the other case, which is one that I had already settled on, is that I want to live my life as a citizen of the world. I love my country, the United States is my home and it always will be my home, but there is so much in the world to see that it only makes sense for me to spend as much time in each country helping as many as I can.

I feel that the InterExchange Foundation Working Abroad Grant is a fantastic way to get young people who cannot afford international travel, like me, a chance to explore the world and not feel so boggled down by thoughts of finances throughout the duration of their trip. The grant enabled me to really get into my time abroad, as opposed to thinking about the loan I took out for traveling, and how I will be able to make those first payments. Not only did it help financially, but it forced me to really think about why I was going abroad. I knew that I wanted to experience the world and ¨find myself¨, but my interview with Patsy made me think differently about my time in India. From the day of the interview it stopped being so much about what I would see in India as opposed to what I would be doing there and what would happen to me. It put things into perspective. I went abroad for an education that I could not receive in the schoolroom, and I got it.