Unexpected learning

I expected to learn about the world in studying global health. What I didn’t expect is to feel overwhelmed by what I was learning.

It’s not the books, or the reading and even the qualitative research methods. Those things, though sometimes completely beyond my comfort zone, I can study and work at and eventually learn.

It’s the stats. Case studies, situations, experiences, and people. All this humanity and suffering, culminating in a mirage of colour and emotion representing mainly pain.

Don’t get me wrong; there are successes and joyful stories of triumph over adversity. They shine like stars in what sometimes seems like a very black and vast sky.

But what if I start to break down the numbers so they don’t just work as numbers any more. They are people. 

“Put a face to the numbers game”.

For example, those 50 million displaced persons of which over half are children? Each one is a person, with hopes and dreams, a family, a preference of ice cream and hobbies that they enjoy doing.

It’s not that it’s a tall mountain to climb. It’s the situation where I don’t even see the top of the mountain that we are trying to learn about.

Suddenly I realise that I am very small.