International Health Division

By Hana Alazem, Physiotherapy Student, Queen's University

I am a physical therapy student who loves kids, new experiences, traveling the world, and learning new things. These passions led me and a colleague to sign up for an international placement in the rural south of India last fall.

 I was caught off-guard by a little girl dressed in pink, wearing jingling glass bangles and orange flowers in her hair. Every time I looked at her, she would giggle. She followed me for the rest of the day. Although we had no language in common, I did eventually get her to smile and even wave for a photo. I will never forget the utter happiness she displayed despite her impoverished lifestyle. I quickly learned, however, that the lifestyle to which my hosts and clients were accustomed was in fact very functional.

 We settled in our own village, which was our home for the next six weeks. Our days started with a nice hot shower in an outdoor stall, using buckets of boiling water. We would then put on our formal professional attire called a salwar kameez. This outfit consisted of a below-the-knee-length tunic and light pants in many bright colours. Next, we ate a traditional South Indian breakfast of rice with nuts and chilis or oput (a cream-of-wheat-like savory dish with onions and more chilis!). Once our stomachs were full, we left the compound on motor bikes or jeeps to visit our village clients with the local CBR workers.

Our clients had myriad disabilities, including cerebral palsy, spina bifida, spinal cord injury, stroke, and intellectual disabilities. Our role was to work on difficult caseloads with the CBR workers and together establish a functional treatment plan that catered to our clients’ beliefs and lifestyles. Most of our treatments consisted of education, exercises as well as designing functional assistive devices such as ankle and foot orthotics, forearm crutches and wheelchairs using local resources and craftsmen. After our midday lunch break, we would sit in the shade, avoiding the excruciating heat as much as we could before embarking on more evening appointments.  

I experienced some unforgettable and rewarding moments, and also gained some deep insight and valuable lessons. Here are the three most important lessons I learned on this journey.

Be in the moment. No amount of preparation or advice can prepare you for something that is outside of your comfort zone. Embark on your journey, but make sure to leave expectations behind. The smallest things, such as a woman beading a flower necklace, children playing with old tire tubing and sticks, and even the sight of a cow crossing the road, can turn out to be unforgettable memories. You can easily overlook these exceptional events if you focus on certain expectations and outcomes.

Take every opportunity. Calculate the risks and before you start analyzing them too much, go ahead and take them. I quickly adopted the popular mantra, “have no regrets,” when debating whether to visit a local ashram and city markets solo, following the Mumbai terrorist attacks that occurred while I was abroad. Although most things are better when shared, some journeys and adventures can be experienced on a deeper level on your own.

Finally, the world is not a small place. It is huge, with so much to do and see that is different from your everyday world. It is fascinating how mankind has developed an avenue through technology and resources that provide the opportunity to go out there and visit, communicate and see how similar we as humans really are. We all feel love, pain, hot, cold, sad, happy, hungry, and sick. We all have different abilities and disabilities. We all have the capacity to learn languages and find a way to communicate with each other in order to share what we can.

If you find yourself itching to go and help someone, see a new culture, experience new things, then jump on it! Whether you decide to simply visit different regions here in Canada such as an aboriginal reserve, a local homeless shelter, or you decide to embark on an experience abroad, make it happen. The number of new experiences one can embark on whether near or far, professional or personal, will shape us and give us a chance for unique reflection. On that note, if not to have stirred up some interest, reactions- good or bad, I am happy to have had a chance to reflect on an experience that was completely out of my zone, and share it with the world, for this I thank you for reading my story.

About the Author:

My name is Hana Alazem and I am a Canadian-born, 23-year-old MSc student in Physical Therapy at Queen’s.  I am of middle-eastern ethnic descent; mother is Egyptian and my father Syrian. I have lived in Canada all my life and thought I was a culturally sound individual, but this great international physical therapy placement not only challenged my professional skills but also my personal and emotional coping skills. I would like to thank the School of Rehabilitation Therapy for this placement abroad, the host organization Samuha, and our wonderful clinical instructor Hilary Crowley. I also thank my colleague and good friend, Faraley VanderSchilden, who embarked on this journey with me and whose patience and sense of humour made our unforgettable journey run smoothly. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their endless support and encouragement.