Cold & Cloudy!

Today is another winter day. The sky is cloudy and the sun would not look down on the people.
The clouds play tricky…they slowly ascend blocking the rays of the sun… leaving emptiness all around. I don’t want to go another day with clouds in my way…please let the sun shine through!

Lately, wierd thoughts about ‘life’ have been hitting my mind. I keep telling myself philosphical stuff like - we all travel on this long road called life, which is kind of bumpy and sometimes tiring, and the end is a secret hidden by a blanket of fog. But no matter what - one has to go on and on... (Is it the weather or may be I am just missing my husband too much!)

Anyway, on another note - few weeks’ back, I went for an event organized by the Global Health Council on ‘Trafficking of Children & Adolescents as a Public Health Issue’. The meeting focused on the fact that sex trafficking of children & adolescents is a worldwide problem with enormous health consequences including HIV and STDs, reproductive health issues, gastro-intestinal diseases and bodily injuries. These health challenges impact both individuals and wider community, yet there is little involvement of the public health community either in terms of data collection or service delivery.

The speakers for the event were distinguished people like Gary Cohen, who’s the Board Director of Perrigo Company, the US Fund for UNICEF, the Academic Alliance Foundation and a member of the private sector delegation to the Global Fund. He serves as an advocate, speaker and expert panelist in forums involving child health & HIV/AIDS. Other speakers for the day were Azra Kacapor Nurkic, who’s the Director for Children and Youth Programs at World Learning Headquarters in Washington DC, Jay Silverman, who’s a public health researcher-his work focuses on the improvement of practice in the prevention of violence against adolescent and adult women in the US and internationally and Brian Willis, Health Advisor for ECPAT USA, who also served in the Peace Corps in Paraguay.

Last weekend, Gargi and me got the opportunity to visit the ‘Kali Maa’ (Hindu Goddess) temple in Washington DC with an Indian couple. It was a sight to see so many Indians together and all women dressed up in ‘sarees’! After offering prayers, we had ‘prasad’ (food) at the temple and then got back home after a nice long drive.