When I first began learning about Haiti back in high school, I was given the book Mountains Beyond Mountains by 6 people. After reading the book, my first thought was " I want to meet this man!" When I was on my way out of my high school library, the librarian saw the book under my arm and asked me how I liked it. When I told her that I loved it and would love to meet either the author or Dr. Farmer himself, she told me that Tracy Kidder was her neighbor. She gave me Tracy Kidder's email address and in a heartbeat I was sitting at a computer typing him up a long email telling him about my life and how I made it to an elite boarding school on a full scholarship having come from a lifetime of poverty. He wrote me back with his telephone number and asked for me to call him. That night, I sat in my dorm room chatting with Tracy Kidder himself for nearly an hour about what it was like to follow Dr. Farmer in Haiti and how he ever put into words what he experienced. I'll never forget what he told me that night when I mentioned how much I would love to go to Haiti and work someday. He said, "We're talking about life and death here. Working in a poor country like Haiti is not as romantic as it sounds." That line has resonated with me for the last six years. After that conversation, he put me in touch with Dr. Farmer's office and over the next several years I met Dr. Farmer on several occasions and was ultimately convinced by him to defer medical school for a year and follow my passion for public health in Haiti. Next week, President Ruth Simmons has invited me to join her and Dr. Farmer for dinner. I haven't seen him in over two years so I'm very excited.
Following Tracy Kidder's invite to Roger Williams University yesterday, I've been invited to give a presentation on my work in Haiti and to discuss the book Mountains Beyond Mountains written by Tracy Kidder and how the book inspired me to work in Haiti. The talk will be on October 6th at 7pm at MNS 200. A dinner with faculty and students will precede the presentation.
March 24th-25th, 2011, I've been invited to Wilmington College in Ohio to be a speaker as a part of the Issues & Artists Series. A dinner with students and faculty will precede the event. The formal program begins at 7:30 p.m. (45 minute presentation followed by 15-30 minutes of Q&A), followed by a reception.
An Overview of the Issues & Artists Series:
The Issues & Artists series at Wilmington College provides an opportunity for cultural and intellectual enrichment for students, faculty, and the community-at-large. Wilmington College is a Quaker-affiliated liberal arts college whose mission requires the integration of character-building into the curriculum and mandates that students be educated on global issues. This series of lectures, performances, and presentations helps fulfill this mission by broadening cultural horizons and educating the audience on compelling social issues. The series also seeks to foster a respect for and an awareness of each individual’s place in the global community.
The audience for these events is made up of students (75%), faculty and staff (15%), and members of the wider community (10%). The size of the audience for previous events has ranged from 175 to 450 people, depending on the appeal of the program, the connection to courses offered at the time, and factors outside of our control – weather, other events in the College and surrounding community, etc.
