May: the month that many change their title of “Miss” to “Mrs.” and the month that soon-to-be-doctors finally garner the title of “MD.”
For me, the first week of May ended my first full week back in the United States after having spent the semester studying abroad in Honduras.
The first few days back in Tennessee were an adjustment as I traded early morning bumpy rides over dirt roads for late-night drives on the smooth, black surface of the interstate, as I traded a diet of freshly ground corn tortillas and beans cooked in shortening for chemically processed bread and low-fat deli meat, as I traded the natural, soothing landscape of rural Olancho, Honduras for the vivid, over-stimulating palette of shrines of materialism that seem to decorate every corner of our communities and as I traded phrases like “que hay” for “how’s it going” and “vaya pues” for “alright, sounds good to me.”
And after completing 132 surveys relating to dietary diversity in school-age children, visiting 14 schools in three different communities, spending nine weeks in another country and working with an organization like PREDISAN, I think I have learned more about the meaning of health and what health means to a community than I ever could have in the traditional classroom setting.
Working with an integrative program such as PREDISAN’s Healthy School Program, which provides a daily healthy snack, school garden and two basic packets a year consisting of parasite medication, physical examination, lessons about self-esteem and Christian values, vitamins and fluoride treatment, I have learned that health in all aspects is necessary for a community.
Health is necessary for a child to learn, and educated children are the future of a community.
A child cannot learn if they have walked 1.5 hours to school without having eaten breakfast, if their body is weakened by fighting illness, if they do not receive the nutrients they need to develop and a child cannot learn if every night they go to sleep to the sounds of domestic violence.
I’ve learned that health sometimes depends on community. What if a person needs clean water to stay healthy but has no access to clean water? What if a person needs a variety of foods to grow adequately but such variety doesn’t exist in their community?
What if a person needs clean air to breathe but the only source of heating and preparing food comes from an open adobe stove inside the same room where they sleep?
During the last week I was in Honduras, I traveled to a small village to help some of the PREDISAN staff unload concrete, or rather watch them unload concrete since just a few of those bags weigh as much as I do, for an upcoming latrine project.
Later, above the noise of the occasional flock of wild toucans or parrots, we spoke with nearly all of the men in the community about improving community hygiene and what roles each individual would play in the upcoming project.
As they spoke, I realized this day, this meeting, summed up everything I had learned about health the past few months. A person’s individual health depends on the community’s health, and a community’s health depends on an integrative effort in which in member of the community actively participates to ensure that all members are healthy.
It involves the assurance and maintenance of clean water sources, proper sanitation and the knowledge of how to use such services.
To change the health of a community, you have to involve the community – you have to let them find purpose in taking an active role in the development and maintenance of their health. And I realized that this meeting was helping the members in this remote village to take such an active role.
Before I came to Honduras, my perspective of health was more defined by the absence of physical disease. So how do I now define health?
Health is the combination physical, social, mental and spiritual conditions that allow a person to optimally achieve whatever their purpose in life may be, whether that be a “frijole” planter, a “lacteo” producer or the next “presidente” of a country like Honduras.
My semester abroad has ended. A piece of my heart has been left in the mountains of Honduras, left in the bright eyes and smiles of children wanting an opportunity to grow up to live the lives intended for them, but I have returned to Tennessee feeling thankful to have had the opportunity to work with an organization such as PREDISAN.
I am thankful to have had the opportunity to gain a better understanding of what health is and how I can help make people and communities healthier.

Author