Lydia Essenmacher

March 5, 2019

One hundred and twenty seven hours. I will be in Cameron County for one hundred and
twenty seven hours. I will arrive at approximately 11pm on Sunday night and I am leaving at
6am on Saturday. I will spend 48 hours of this time sleeping. I will spend 12 hours of this week
eating. I will spend at least 2 hours hopefully trying to get a tan. Finally, I will spend
approximately 40 hours working on a project that will create lasting impacts.

The project I am working on is a tabletop exercise for the Cameron County Health
Department. A tabletop exercise is an emergency preparedness exercise that brings together
various stakeholders to practice an emergency preparedness exercise. We are performing
informational interviews with various stakeholders.

I want to represent the interests of a community that I am not a part of but I respect very
much. Many people are concerned with the border area for a large variety of reasons. However,
there are thousands of people who live in this community who love their culture and their
experience and their people. I am from a very different community, but I as an outsider, I want to
respect my role and contribute. There has been a history of researchers going into vulnerable
communities and not creating a positive change. I am aware that I am a researcher and public
health trainee that is learning from and with this community. We are creating an important
exercise that has a large impact on the community. This is why it is important to work with the
community, so their interests deserve and need to be included.

In my one hundred and twenty seven hours in Cameron County, I want to represent
myself and the University of Michigan well. I want to make the people I am working with proud
and even more excited for their exercise. I want to eat a lot of tacos. I still hope that I can
actually get tan and I won't burn. Mostly, I want to use my 40 hours and one hundred and twenty
seven hours in Cameron County creating a long term and sustainable change for their
community. Tune in next time to see how many hours I spend eating tacos.