My first trip to Salvador was in 2003 as a PhD student. I was studying public health but received a Foreign Language and Area Studies scholarship to enhance my Portuguese skills. I chose a program from UCLA that allowed me to study in Salvador because of capoeira. I started capoeira in 1998 and like most capoeristas, I wanted to go to Brazil and I was particularly interested in Salvador.
During my visit in 2003, I contacted a faculty member at the Institute of Collective Health (ISC) at the Federal University of Bahia named Professor Mauricio Barreto. He was evaluating the impact of a city-wide sanitation program on the health of the population and I was interested in his work. I remember walking up to the Institute of Collective Health and meeting with him one afternoon in the summer of 2003. Nine years later, in 2012, I contacted him again to see if he might support my application for a Fulbright Scholar award to work at ISC. Professor Barreto miraculously remembered me, I received the award and moved to Salvador with my family for three months in 2014. The experience and the partnerships I developed helped me set up the School of Public Health (SPH) study abroad program here in Salvador.
This year begins our third program with students from SPH at Georgia State University. Each visit is an opportunity for me to learn about our students, share the wonderful city and people of Salvador with them, and for me to learn about myself. The work involved to get here is immense and intensive and so is our time in the city. But I believe that the experience can be life changing, as it was for me.
Our first few days here have been exhausting but also very rewarding. It is hard to capture the beauty of the city in pictures or words. You can’t easily understand how it feels to be immersed in a culture and language until you are there. Now, three days into our three week trip, our students are getting to experience these things and reflect on how they are impacting their lives. Each activity we do helps me to see our program in new ways as well. Our tour of the city reminded me of just how big this place is and how much more there is to learn. I am excited to do this together with the group!
Christine Stauber