1.
I went with the engineering department to Tanzania to observe an ongoing project that OSU has been working on in a village called Marwa to help set up a water distribution system. As a group we went into the village about five different times to see some of the things that OSU has helped put into place, such as rainwater harvesting tanks and we got to watch a borehole drilling.
2.
My understanding of myself changed because I got to observe myself in a very different cultural setting where I was definitely uncomfortable at times. I definitely feel like being put in uncomfortable situations definitely teaches you a lot about yourself. My understanding of the world transformed because we got to engage with the community in the village. They were a very tight knit community, everyone took care of everyone. I was definitely jealous of the community aspect because I feel like in America it’s more everyone for themselves. I learned that I really value a sense of community and it makes me much happier when I feel like I have one.
3.
I really enjoyed and learned a lot from the interactions with the community of the village as well as the University of Dodoma students. Interacting with the University of Dodoma students was very enlightening. We had really good conversations about a lot of different things, including their opinions on world affairs. Two of the students had conflicting views about whether financial aid provided from other countries to Tanzania/Africa in general is beneficial. It is obviously really important for us as Americans to hear their perspectives, considering they live in the country that we are trying to “help”. Overall, having these conversations and listening to everyone’s perspectives is so important if I’m going to do more “humanitarian engineering” work in the future.
It was really cool to see how excited the community was during the borehole drilling. So many people were watching for hours in hope that water would be struck (which it was). It was really amazing to see the people who are going to be affected firsthand by this project and get to talk to them about how much it all meant to them. It made it so meaningful, and I know that I want to experience that more throughout my life and I hope I can achieve it through my career doing humanitarian engineering work.
It was also really great to be surrounded by people from Ohio state that all have similar goals as me. We all were engineering majors, but we want to feel like we’re actually helping people through our careers. It was great to make connections with these people, as well as the professors that traveled with us. Michael and Patrick have both done amazing things in their careers and will continue to do amazing things, and I am grateful to be able to use them as resources.
4.
This transformation is valuable for my life because I think I want to do some sort of humanitarian engineering work as my career, possibly similar to the work we observed on this trip. This trip helped with that because I was able to see the impact of this type of work first hand on the community in the village, which was definitely inspiring. I also was a part of important conversations with people from Tanzania that got me to think hard about many different ways the people there are affected by “humanitarian engineering” work, which is very important to think about if that will be my career.