“40 miles? Around a mountain? That’s crazy!” has been the immediate response from anyone I have shared my plans with. I agree; it feels crazy. At this point in my training I am grateful that I really did not have an understanding for what I was getting myself into. I have never trained for anything,…
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Introducing Steph: Interim USA Director
Beginning this month, Olivia and I (Jason) are moving to Tanzania for the next year to work with the Global Health Service Partnership (read more about our plans here). We will be continuing our work with RHC from abroad but will obviously be more limited in our abilities to respond to local needs in the…
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Olivia and Jason are moving to Tanzania
My geography of Africa can be a little rough too. Tanzania is on the East side of Africa, famous for being home to Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti (I’m still figuring out exactly what that is) and adjacent to the tropical island of Zanzibar that rests in the Indian Ocean- this is what I really have…
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Connected through Motherhood
Almost a year ago, in the early hours of the morning I became a mother. We welcomed our baby girl in the peace and calm of our bedroom surrounded by skilled professionals. One of the ideas that resonated with me while preparing for birth was to imagine all the women around the world that were…
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“These moments move me”
An update from Olivia: I’ve been to Ghana so many times over the last decade that I lost count. So I decided to count. This visit marks my sixth time landing in Accra at Kotoka International Airport and stepping onto the tarmac to be greeted by the thick warm air of the tropics. The scent…
Read MoreWhen do you become a woman? #internationalwomensday
Our culture often ignores a significant event in a young girl’s life: when that girl becomes a woman. Some cultures have a ceremony, rather than simple happenstance, to usher in the change. But for me, no one and no culture ever recognized when I became a woman. During my 20’s, with all their substantial bumps…
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Olivia Teaches…and Smiles!
In addition to my duties at the health clinic assessing and treating patients, I had come to Ghana to teach. To share health skills and life skills for women to improve the quality of life in the communities they lived in. The day had finally arrived, after two months of preparation and we set out…
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Olivia in the Clinic
We traveled through the countryside on one of our outings for me to see the villages and assess for high blood pressure. We bumped along on the dusty dirt roads that are reshaped each year by the rains and only passable during the dry season. Deep ruts paralleled each side where the unfettered rain had…
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Olivia Experiences the Village
On my first full day in the village I cleaned my face with wet wipes because I wasn’t sure how to get water. I had begun to worry that I would not have enough of these to last me so I had started breaking them in half and stuffing the remainder back into the packet,…
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Olivia Goes to Ghana
In the summer of 2007, after graduating from nursing school, Olivia went to Ghana for the first time. She volunteered at a clinic, in a village called Seva, in rural Ghana. Anyone who knows her, or knew her then, knows that this was a difficult three months for her. She recently wrote an essay about…
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