THIRTY FIFTH ISSUE
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4. BREAKING BREAD, BOILING DUMPLINGS MADISON MELTON
10. 2015 ON TOGETHERNESS 14. THE VISCERAL 20. AN ANGEL 24. 365 DAYS ARE SOMETIMES BIANCA BARSAN ZAREEN CHIBA
EDGARDO SCHIENA
NOT ENOUGH SHARON TIRADO
Through Our Lens A Review of 2015
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MELTON, MADISON @nomad_melton
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BREAKING BREAD, BOILING DUMPLINGS
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W
hen I lived in Beijing, the aunt in my host family made me pork and cabbage dumplings every morning for breakfast, even though they had to be laboriously ‘bao’-ed— folded—by hand. On Chinese New Year, my host parents sat me down and tried to teach me to make them myself, and they pretended to like them even though the dough hung out in strange places and half of them broke and crumpled when they were boiled. On my rare visits back, nothing makes me feel more at home than the smell of vinegar, garlic, soy sauce, and hot oil that permeates every Chinese restaurant, a smell I have never found recreated elsewhere.
Breaking Bread Boiling Dumplings
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When I got sick in Hong Kong, my best friend’s mother brought me a bowl of congee: porridge made by over-boiling rice until the grains break and go soft, usually served with spring onion and egg or meat. When my grandparents came to visit several months later, their best memory from the trip was when we went together to my favourite outdoor hot-pot restaurant. It’s all-you-can-eat. Meat, seafood, and veggies are selected and boiled together in a pot at the centre of the table, the steam making everyone sweat and making those seated across the table look fuzzy through the humidity. When I go to visit them in the American southwest later this month for Thanksgiving, we’ll share turkey, pie, and mashed potatoes. The rest of the visit will be punctuated with burritos and fresh guacamole and all the other foods unique to the region.
I moved to South Africa at the beginning of this year. I was only supposed to stay for six months, but I fell in love with a country, a university, and a person, and I’ve finished the year here and will come back for another. I’m leaving for the holidays in two days, and my suitcase is stuffed full with rusks—slices of hard bread for dunking in tea or coffee—and the uniquely South African rooibos tea. Some I am bringing for a friend who used to live in South Africa and requested the taste of home, others are to share with my parents and family and to bring something of my life here back to them.
BREAKING BREAD, BOILING DUMPLINGS
Source: http://www.hgsitebuilder.com/files/writeable/uploads/ hostgator502491/image/papaya_mango_mate_tea.jpg
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Pr univers to risin higher e South A rates o protest but at country Graham peacefu confron protest in othe have e indefini emotio protest to stud walked and san
Source: https://face2faceafrica.com/wp-content/ uploads/2015/05/sethembile-real.jpg
Source: http://www.dispatchlive.co.za/wpcontent/uploads/2015/03/RHodesStatue.jpg
MELTON, MADISON @nomad_melton
I world only a of com spiritua taught but foo the sim bring f
rotests broke out at my South African sity, Rhodes, last month in opposition ng tuition and residence fees that put education far out of reach for most in Africa, which has one of the highest of wealth inequality in the world. The ts at Rhodes remained peaceful, many other universities around the y, including at another college in mstown where Rhodes is located, ul protestors were met with violent ntation by the police. Some of the ts have continued through this week er parts of the country, and exams either been cancelled or postponed itely. Last month at Rhodes, in the onally intense atmosphere of the ts, local restaurants donated food dent protestors, and other students d through the crowd handing out fruit ndwiches.
have yet to go somewhere in the where food, when available, is not a biological necessity but an act mmunion in the most secular (yet al) sense. Many years overseas has me that few things are universal, od is one of them. This goes beyond mple fact that people need to eat. We food when people are born and we
BREAKING BREAD, BOILING DUMPLINGS
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bring food when people die. We bring food when we celebrate, when we have guests, when people are ill or injured, and when events of national and global significance are ongoing. In other words, we share food when we don’t have the words to express grief, sympathy, joy, and relationship. We share food when it is all we can do to help, and the world over people seem to understand that even though it’s not enough, it’s always enough. In any conflict, the one constant is that when either side takes a rest, they are undoubtedly sitting in similar circles on either side of the battle line and sharing what food is available with one another. So much has happened this year that I don’t yet have the words to articulate: finding a new home in South Africa, falling in love, suffering an injury that required surgery and left me bed-bound for almost two months, and trying to understand how all of these things and their implications impact my understanding of my place in the world. The words are not enough quite yet, but through all of it, like my whole life and everywhere I’ve been, food has been the universal medium through which one person passes expression to another. In another new country, in all of my new relationships, this remains.
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2015
On togetherness
2015 ON TOGETHERNESS
T
rying to sum up all of 2015 in a few hundred words proved not to be an easy task - be it because I am generally bad at summing up events or because it has simply been so eventful, it is probably the most difficult article I have had to write to this day. Generally speaking, there has been a lot of global events which forced us to change the way we see the world: from the ongoing attacks of extremist groups, which triggered feelings of anxiety and even islamophobia in the West, in the context of the refugee crisis, to the worsening hostility between Israel and Palestine and so on. To me, however, a big turning point of 2015 was the fire that took over “Colectiv� - a former communist factory now
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turned into a night club in Bucharest, Romania - which emphasized the damages that are imminent when money (i.e. corruption) is prioritized above human life. To this day, there have been 50 deaths and unfortunately, despite the efforts of Romanian and overseas doctors, we are told that there are many more to come. This all happened because the said club had no authorization to run the event on the 30th of October, had little fire safety equipment and had but one small exit for the overwhelming crowd of over 400 people. How was it able to run its activities then? Bribe. Corruption.
BARSAN, BIANCA @biancaomikami
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Although it is heart-breaking to check the news everyday only to find more people to have died in hospitals across Europe, where some of the victims were sent off to, it sheds light on what the bigger picture is in Romania: the political class is at its worst since the 1989 revolution and now the people are more than even desperate to reclaim their country. There have been several protests in Bucharest, but also other major cities in Romania, as well as outside of it: London, Paris, Shanghai and so on; the feeling of joy at the thought of this unity and cohesion of what I like to call ‘my people’ is one that will hardly be overcome by any events to follow this year.
Again, I say this is the most important event for me in 2015 not because of its intrinsic horrific character, but because of what it may bring now; because at least now, at the cost of tens of young beautiful souls, we may begin to build a country we are proud of, as Romanians, and I am sure this incident will not be forgotten quickly. A first victory has already happened, with the Government stepping down and taking responsibility, as well as other clubs in a similar legal situation closing down and some being arrested in the case of the “Colectiv” fire.
2015 ON TOGETHERNESS
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In the end, I feel the need to mention that I did not write this because my life was lacking in important events this year, nor because I wanted to upset people, but rather because to me it looks like the beginning of a revolution and the evolution of my country, which is so dear to my heart, but which so far has not proved to be a place I would see myself living in - due to the aforementioned issues. Perhaps now things will start to change. Perhaps soon enough I will be even more proud to call myself Romanian. And perhaps we will manage this by staying together and fighting for our cause.
BARSAN, BIANCA @biancaomikami
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A
strong personal lesson I wish to share from the closed halls of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, the operation theatres of Barcelona, the public health system and streets of Hong Kong and the avoidable passing of end-organ failure patients worldwide. Medicine is a field which encompasses the humanities and the sciences, and the ethics of human suffering and choice. In 2009, a report by WHO’s Western Pacific Region stated that “The inadequate number of donors is a major challenge and public awareness of the dangers of commercial trade and trafficking of human
THE VISCERAL: THE DIRE NEED OF ORGAN DONATION AT A TIME OF RISING NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASE
CHIBA, ZAREEN @Zarcchi
THE VISCERAL |
organs has become highly essential.� This report came at a time when the medical community began to realize that noncommunicable diseases were becoming the real anti-health threat, and that the global burden was only increasing. This year, those statistics still rise, and little has changed despite treaties, petitions and campaigns for organ donation.
Men who sold a kidney each to dealers bearing their scars with pride (Image Credits: HBO Tales of the Organ Trade)
CHIBA ZAREEN
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It was a few events this year that shifted my passive role as a potential cadaveric donor to an advocate for organ donation. The first was the movie screening of “Tales from the Organ Trade” by Medicus Mundi, a network of international healthcare organizations I was introduced to at the World Health Assembly, that revealed to me the severity of the organ black market and the ugly nuances of the demand and supply of health systems. That men in Southeast Asia, primarily the Philippines, were selling their organs without knowledge of the detriment to their health to supplement the “transplant tourism” industry from the West wiped my naivety away, and taught me that where there is a lack of donors or
Transplant surgeons at the Hospital de Sant Pau preparing outside an organ harvesting surgery (Image credits: Zareen Chiba)
supply, unhealthy commercial interests will naturally fill the niche. The second was the recent death of a 19 year-old Hong Kong girl after waiting 2 weeks for a lung transplant shook my city’s healthcare and media circles because it was a wakeup call that the inertia of the public could cost so dearly. Then my research with my faculty about perceptions of organ donation revealed that some of the major barriers of the non-medical public to agreeing to become a donor include a lack of family consent, a mistaken belief that doctors will neglect treating their donor registrant patients out of an ulterior motive, and that there is an age limit to
Attaching at the transplant department of Hospital de Sant Pau (Image credits: Zareen Chiba)
At 10pm in the evening, in scrubs awaiting my first viewing of an organ extraction surgery (Image credits: Zareen Chiba)
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donation (in fact, UK’s youngest kidney donor was only 2 hours old). Others stated that it may conflict with the practicing of their religious faith, but Buddhist, Catholic and Christian religious leaders have all stated that organ donation is of no conflict to their faiths and may even be an act of altruism It is likely that these misconceptions are shared by people outside of my locality; if you share these, know that the treatment you receive from doctors is no way impaired by your registration status, and always talk to your family about your decision to become a donor.
Western Pacific Regional Meeting Report of the WHO Guiding Principles on Human Organ Transplantation
THE VISCERAL |
CHIBA ZAREEN
Through a reflection of my events as well as the global statistics, I hope you, the reader may challenge yourself to explore the idea of becoming an organ donor and the local process for applying, and for those of you who are already registered, I thank you for doing so. My clinical attachment at the transplant department at Hospital De Sant Pau in Barcelona allowed me to witness firsthand the gratitude of a heart transplant recipient, in stark contrast to the many renal failure patients with pigmented skin and ill demeanor in the wards of my local hospitals. I wish for the reduction of unnecessary suffering for my future patients, and you can be a part of the solution.
CHIBA, ZAREEN @Zarcchi
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an angel SCHIENAS, EDGARDO @Eschienas
AN ANGEL
A
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EDGARDO SCHIENDAS
with most of which I became good friends. In nd here we come, these last couple of years, another year is about to I really had a lot of fun; finish. Wow! I remember parties, drinking, dancing when a couple of years and especially being ago during high school I surrounded by lovely was fantasizing about how people. My life since I live my college years would here in Spain has changed be. Well, I have to say I drastically. I became more am not disappointed at mature and responsible, I all with my current life. have learnt to distinguish I live abroad, in a lovely and organize my priorities country such as Spain, I and to understand what am constantly surrounded really is important in by nature and history, life. Especially this year, cheerful and lovely people, 2015, was a year full of good food and marvelous success and happiness wine. I mean, who wouldn’t regarding university and like a life like this? My personal life. But there college life started in 2013, is one aspect that made a couple of years ago. I this year the best year met a lot of new people of my life in my opinion;
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meeting my current partner and girlfriend. A couple of days ago we celebrated one year together and I can say that nobody made me so happy in my entire life as she is. This year, despite my professional successes, wasn’t as easy as it seemed. At a certain point of the year I felt that something was missing in my life, something that many people desire in their lives; love. My past love experiences were not as happy and enjoyable as this current one, and slowly
I lost the idea of meaning and the importance of love. But thanks to her, I managed to rediscover the beauty of love. She stormed into my life like an angel that fell from the sky, and managed to help me survive the dark emotional period I was living. There is no better thing than facing each day knowing that I have somebody like her by my side, somebody that loves me, thinks about me and most importantly misses me. We met each other, and I remember when at the start we were not sure how much
AN ANGEL
we would last together; months, weeks, days. Our future was a mystery. But slowly we managed to know each other, understand and accept our nature and slowly we fell in love with each other. The best part of all of this was that nothing was planned. Everything happened because it was bound to happen, because it was written somewhere, maybe in the stars or maybe it was just decided it had to go like this. This year we went through many things, many ups and downs, but now I believe that we are
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EDGARDO SCHIENDAS
stronger than ever. I never felt so happy of having somebody by my side, and I believe I have been very lucky finding her in the right moment of my life. I love her with all my heart. With this article I would like to thank her for everything she did for me, thank You for always standing by my side and thank You for becoming one of the most important people in my life. This year has been fantastic by Your side, and I hope that we will pass many more years together and maybe build something that will always be part of Us.
SCHIENAS, EDGARDO @Eschienas
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“365 days are sometimes not enough” TIRADO, SHARON @shatirado
A
nother year is gone. December is already here, reminding us that Christmas just arrived. It’s time to buy presents for our beloved ones, assist to family dinners and recap all that we went through this year. When a year starts, we decide a set of goals that we plan to achieve during the following days and perhaps when the year is over, we realize we did not do as much as we planned. The fact is that sometimes we do not have enough time to do all that we want to do. Today’s world is characterized by new opportunities coming up every day so that sometimes we end up loosing track of our own goals. Looking at this year from a personal perspective, this year I decided to start an internship while studying my third year of university even
365 DAYS ARE SOMETIMES NOT ENOUGH |
SHARON TIRADO
though in the country I live in it is quite uncommon. Admittedly in some places working at the same time as studying is a condition to afford the studies in the first place. I in turn have the freedom to do it voluntarily. Nevertheless, I realized while doing both things – two things that I love- that people that get too attached to their jobs, end up having a life dedicated to their job only. I am not saying this is a bad thing to do, perhaps it can be really admirable in some cases, but I wonder if these people can sometimes find time to dedicate some attention to their children. In February I became aunt of my third nephew and I believe I am really lucky to be able to see how he is growing up. However, I wish that in these 365 days that just passed, I would have been able to dedicate
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more time to him playing with him, teaching him new things and sharing new experiences.
ones, how to dedicate a moment for themselves and how to dedicate some time with our precious ones.
The fact is that we have built a society in which we have forgotten the real values of life. Sometimes people live under such an amount of stress that they do not have the time to laugh, to go on a trip, to share moments with their sons or nephews - they don’t have time to live in general. We should dedicate more time to the things that fulfill us on the inside and not on the outside, since at the end, that is what counts the most.
Always remember that there are certain things that we should never lose track of.
When being at the New Years Eve party we should look after what we would like to fix, instead of adding new goals for our next year. Society needs to remember how to share moments with their beloved
TIRADO, SHARON @shatirado
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