Chattin Up the Profs

I had two meetings today with potential mentors. Other than being able to cross someone off the list for sure, one of them was a waste of time. The professor didn't even know who I was. They thought I was someone else and that I was interested in doing an internship in gerontology. Don't get me wrong, I love old people, and I'm not just saying that, but that's not what I want to devote the rest of my time to. Although I'm not sure I want to use the other professor as my mentor either, that second meeting at least got me thinking a little bit about my project and the purpose of my experience in South Africa.

First on a practical level. This professor said he doesn't have a lot of knowledge about South Africa, nor of HIV/AIDS beyond basic information, but he said that he has heard anecdotally that South Africa has a growing prevalence of obesity. I have seen a little bit about this in my research, but what I did read seemed to indicate that the increase in BMI was mostly due to the extreme stratification of social classes, and that malnutrition is still prevalent among lower socioeconomic classes. Because the Eastern Cape is one of the poorest districts in South Africa, I hadn't considered the possibility that the problem I want to study won't be a problem. So I started thinking, what do I do if I get there and this doesn't work out? 1) I could just do a study of the eating habits of HIV positive women and talk to them about what things they find difficult. 2) I could compare their eating habits to those of women without HIV. 3) I could find an NGO like Siyakhana in Johannesburg that works with food insecure families and interview their beneficiaries as opposed to the beneficiaries of AIDS clinics. In essence, I could study whether or not HIV positive women are facing barriers as extreme as those who are classified as food insecure. 4) I could compare the experience of HIV positive women to that of HIV positive men. I really hope my project comes through, but if it doesn't, I guess it's always good to have backup.

Second, on a more philosophical level. As I was talking to this professor, he basically said "good luck finding a topic that hasn't already been studied if that's what you're looking for, because HIV/AIDS has been sliced up pretty thoroughly for years. I knew I didn't ever have the chance of going to South Africa and coming back with a world changing study, but I guess I was at least hoping to explore something that hasn't already been beaten with a dead horse. It's probably a pride thing, but I didn't want to be at least a little bit original. However, he did say, and I do agree with this and think I have all along, that in the long run, it doesn't really matter. Because the chances that this project will change the world are one a million billion trillion quadrillion, if my project isn't original, who cares? As long as it is poignant to me, as long as I am getting the experience of being up to my elbows in a different culture, of learning how to interview people effectively, of coming to understand myself better and of broadening my horizons, isn't that a worthy enough goal in itself?

We had a really good discussion in class on Wednesday about ethics and how you should go about inserting yourself in a foreign community. What really kept coming back to me, is that the most important thing in this world is people, and their relationships with each other. If we all could focus on loving other people, and on treating them like human beings and not like research subjects, I think ethics committees would be superfluous. I want to go to South Africa with an open mind. I want to be able to ask a lot of questions and to accept the answers that I am given. I want to come away with a respect for the people and the culture there and I want to examine my own self and my own beliefs as I am pulled from my own little universe into a context that is much different from anything I have experienced. I would say this is one of those opportunities where you should "question everything" except that I know there are some things that are undeniably and universally true. However, because I know they are true, I want to see how they apply practically in a situation that is foreign to me. I don't know if that even makes any sense, and I'm rambling now, so I think I'll probably stop before I drive everyone to tears.