Getting started

There’s a long road between a dream of going into the Peace Corps in 1966 and my invitation to serve in Peru in 2008! The idea was dormant for years and then in 2006, I began to explore work in international health.

Starting point

• I talked with Ann Downer, faculty in Global Health at U of Washington and my sister's neighbor. She helped me realize that jobs in global health are hard to come by without prior international experience either paid or as a volunteer. Gave me suggestions about organizations for volunteer work and suggested Peace Corps.
• I read a lot about volunteer work in international health, contacted organizations and realized I wanted to live in another culture for a period of time rather than volunteer for 3-6 months.
• Read Finding Work in Global Health.
• Read Mountains Beyond Mountains: Healing the World: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer.
• Read Hope in Hell: Inside the World of Doctors Without Borders. While I have great respect for the work of this organization, when I closed the book, I let go of any fantasy of working with them. Way beyond my level of risk-taking.
• Met with Lori DiPrete Brown, faculty in the Global Health Department here at UW Madison. She gave me so many ideas that I left with my head spinning! And signed up for class fall semester 2006.
• First class—Global Epidemiology. Totally fascinating with outstanding lecturers. I felt like I’d been living in a VERY small world and wanted to learn more. Loved the reading.
• Second class—Health and Disease in Uganda. Again I was totally engrossed and encouraged by the professor, Cindy Haq.
• Third class—International Health Systems gave me a solid overview of the agencies and systems. More encouragement from professor Linda Bauman.
• Fourth class—Foundations in Global Health. While I was an audit student for the classes, in the prior classes I did the reading and showed up for class. For this class, Lori DiPrete Brown asked that I do all the homework. That kicked me into gear to write letter of inquiry to 3 organizations as well as do an intensive study of one country (Nicaragua—wish I’d known I was going to Peru!)

Taking the classes was terrific. One of the more helpful aspects was exploring the difference between disaster relief, humanitarian aid and development work. I moved from daydreaming to concrete planning once I knew I wanted to work in grassroots community development. All roads were leading to the Peace Corps but then there was the application process… More about that later.