Dear friends, family, and readers:

I am here by the turqoise Zanzibar sea beginning my first blog. It is in part an effort to record, reflect upon, and share my experiences as I travel through Tanzania and Vietnam, studying Public Health. I have to thank the State Department, as the fact that I am writing this blog is primarily due to a scholarship I received from them. Though I will try to focus specifically on public health, and my study abroad experience, I anticipate that I will stray from these, and also reflect upon my experiences in general. I would like to apologize in advance for the infrequency of my posts. Though I hope in Vietnam I will be able to post regularly, gaining reliable internet access in Tanzania has been challenging, thus my posts about Tanzania will be based on memory, or compare aspects of the two countries in retrospect.

Enjoy.