Ignorance is Bliss

I had an extremely informative and frustrating conversation with Dr. Imrana the other day, a paediatrician from Delhi who has experience in the Indian public health sector equivalent to 2x my age (she's here visiting Jagori just for 5 days). It was informative because knowledge and experience oozed from her very words, and frustrating because it brought light to my ignorance, to how much I still don't know, to how many paradigm shifts in thinking I still have ahead of me.

I was upset initially after the conversation, not with Dr. Imrana of course, but with myself, for my ignorance. But you know, over the last few days, I've come to realize that ignorance is okay. We're all ignorant to some extent; what it's really about, is continually minimizing that ignorance, constantly learning, and never being satisfied with the amount of knowledge that we currently have.

When in the field, for Dr. Pritam's health camps, I came to see first hand the low awareness levels surrounding the national health schemes among the rural populations. Digesting it for the next few days, I thought to myself, you know, if Jagori took a long term perspective on increasing awareness of these health issues amongst the rural population, the communities would know about these schemes they are entitled to, and all would be well in the world (well, my thinking process wasn't quite this simple, I may be exaggerating a bit to highlight my ignorance). In my mind, the disconnect was between policy implementation on the governance level, and policy awareness on the grass roots level; in my mind, this gap needed to be minimized. I even spoke to my direct supervisor, the founder of JagoriGrameen, about incorporating this into a thesis project and including it in our health proposal, she also thought it was a great idea. Then Dr. Imrana asked me a simple question, an extremely simple question that I overlooked entirely; are any of these policies and schemes actually filling the needs of the communities? Is there any research on that? If we begin spreading awareness of national health schemes that are entirely worthless to needs of the people, what the heck is the point? If JagoriGrameen, if I with the organization, began spreading awareness of these schemes without first understanding if they fit the needs of the people or not, how am I any different from the policy makers who implement policies without understanding the realities of the field?
I think I'm beginning to realize how complicated it all is, and that it's not an overnight process. Assessment needs to be the first step, and that requires understanding the policies on the governance level, but also understanding the people's needs, and you can only find that out by going into the field and talking to them.
Anywho, that's my rant. I think, rather than figuring out a long term thesis project right at the beginning, I want see where this summer goes, see where my research surrounding primary health centres stands, and see where I, along with the organization, can take it into the future.
Enough about work! I'll end off with just a briefing of some of the interesting things of the day:
- Ate a mini-mango in front of my entire team because of a dare. Never realized it was going to be the most sour thing I've ever eaten
- Spent 4 hours on the local transit bus, 2 hours of which were spent standing face-to-face with people 'cause the bus was insanely full
- Have serious sniffles, sneezes, and a red nose because I decided to shower in a waterfall and go swimming in the most beautiful water coming down from the Himalayas at a temple.
- Went for a walk in the rain
- Handwashed clothes for 1.5 hrs, partially because I am awful at it, and partially because I've been procrastinating for a few days now
Okie dokes, again, miss you all. I'm usually too busy to miss home, but every once in a while I have those days where I miss mum's cooking and my family and friends.