Exciting Possibility!

I've just finished my week of orientation at QMU.  Most of the days were packed with introduction sessions to things like using the library and the student services office, with optional social events at night- mostly geared toward the undergraduate students.  My program, MSc in Sexual and Reproductive Health, is offered through the Institute for International Health and Development.  IIHD is pretty autonomous within Queen Margaret University and part of our orientation was spent in discussion groups presenting relevant topics in our focus area that we will be concentrating on this year.  I am so excited for classes to begin, after learning about the past experiences of the other students in my program. 
As I've been fortunate in having international experiences integrated into my education, I've always considered myself to have a somewhat broader worldview than many people I know.  But it has been very humbling this first week to realize that I know nothing of the world, particularly of the struggles in Africa and the Middle East.  I have recognized after a few of these early class conversations that I have much to learn and need to primarily listen right now.  I want to represent my country well, and serve in the capacity of an ambassador for the USA, sharing my experience of life in North America.  However,  it is difficult for me to represent a view on topics like 'safe abortion' coming from my cultural context, when right now it is seeming so unrelatable to the reproductive health issues in other parts of the world.
I am beginning to think about my service project for Rotary and a focus for my dissertation.  I have been researching Rotary International's initiatives in Maternal and Infant Health and have found a very impressive project.  Rotary clubs from Germany, Austria, and Nigeria have teamed up to form a comprehensive strategy to improve maternal health in Nigeria, with a focus on preventative health education and treatment of obstetric fistula.  Obstetric fistula is a result of prolonged/obstructive labor, often in very young mothers, where the baby cannot pass through the birth canal and the vaginal tissue becomes necrotic and dies, resulting in the development of a fistula (hole).  Women are ousted from society and abandoned by family because of resulting urinary and fecal incontinence.  The success of Rotary's project in Northern Nigerian states of Kano and Kaduna (http://www.maternal-health.org/rotary/project-information-1/index.html) has me so interested in this project/intervention methodology, that I sent emails to every contact person I could find online, and I was ecstatic to receive a message back from the head of the project yesterday! He will be calling me today and I am so excited to find out if there is some avenue that I can become involved in this project.  I will blog again after our conversation today...