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Brynn Hare '00 (left) and physician Carrie Nelson monitor a woman for diabetes in Jamaica. |
Brynn Hare '00 (right) checks a woman's blood pressure in Jamaica. |
Brynn Hare '00 was looking
for a cross-cultural January-Term experience in medicine when she
learned about Global Volunteers. As it turned out, the nonprofit
development organization devoted to short-term human and economic
development projects around the world would provide Hare with
memorable links to the people of a remote mountain community in
Jamaica. Hare learned from Global
Volunteers that the country's mountain communities are known for
increased incidences of high blood pressure and diabetes. She
received brief training to help a volunteer doctor--Carrie Nelson, a
family friend whom she joined for the trip--test locals in Mount
Vernon for blood pressure and sugar levels. Because the village was
thirty to forty miles from the nearest hospital, and the villagers do
not own cars, few receive proper care, said Hare. Program volunteers
provided them with dietary recommendations, and some were urged to
take the long trip by taxi to the hospital. The bulk of Hare's time in
Mount Vernon, however, was spent in the construction of a footbridge
to enable the children of the isolated village to cross a wide stream
to attend school during the rainy season. She joined local men and
six American volunteers for the rigorous engineering feat. "It was
incredible to watch this bridge rise up out of the ground and know
that we were a part of that," said Hare. Working in the remote
Jamaican outpost surrounded by coffee fields also gave Hare a glimpse
of the area's unique agricultural traditions. "I learned a lot about
the whole process of making coffee," she said. She witnessed the long
hours spent growing and harvesting the crop, which the farmers then
sell to large companies. But the social aspects of
Hare's experiences were among the most inspiring. "Everyone shared in
taking care of the kids," she noted, and the communal spirit was
manifest as well in the village lunch prepared for the bridge
workers. Hare and the other volunteers were housed in two minimally
furnished community dwellings "with flushable toilets." "Eating with
these people, talking and working with them," said Hare, was what
made the experience so valuable. Hare, a neuroscience and
behavior major, is applying for jobs in clinical research and
eventually plans to apply to medical school. She is happy to talk
with any interested students about Global Volunteers.
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