Met Another Member of “The Club” Today

As many of you reading this blog know, my mom and I are extremely close and became even closer after she was diagnosed with cancer almost 5 years ago. Though I don’t even remember writing it, I must have included this information on my housing form for CIEE because Mame Khady (my Senegalese mom) asked me about my mom’s cancer today.

I found out today that my host mom is a member of the cancer club just like me and too many of my family members and friends. We’ve all lost somebody we love because of cancer or have that threat loom over us daily that someday we’ll hear the words “It’s back.” Mame Khady’s mother died of stomach (if I understood her French correctly) cancer in 1979.

My first thought was how young she was when her mom died because Mame Khady must only be in her 40s or 50s. Then I wondered if her mom were to have the same problems today, would she be able to be saved? Her mom received treatment in France but it was unsuccessful. But even if she were to be diagnosed today, being from a developing country would she be diagnosed in time and have access to proper treatment?

Now as I’ve been thinking about it more, I’m reminded of the universal impact cancer has made. I am 20, Catholic, American, in college, living with my parents, and have a career that I haven’t even started in my future. She is the widow of a minister in the Republic of Senegal, lives with her niece and a cook, Muslim, and Senegalese. But it doesn’t really matter. We’re both the daughters of women who have been diagnosed with cancer. That one word crossed languages, continents, races, age, and religion among other things to remind us that we aren’t all that different and that mothers and daughters always have been and always will be special.

One of the joys of being away from home is being away from the things that drag us down daily. It is easy to write off negative things like poor healthcare and low life expectancies in foreign countries because it’s “foreign.” We have our own difficulties at home and as my people have said “I want my semester abroad to be relaxing. I want to go to the beaches and soak in the culture.”  But I’m starting to wonder if there really is such thing as foreign or if things, good and bad, simply come in different casings. So this year when I relay, I'll be relaying for one more family.