In 2014-15, I taught a Global Awareness course that took Agnes Scott first-year students to study gender and community development in Trinidad and Tobago. This teaching experience was the coming together of many of my lifelong interests and experiences in international and intercultural learning. As an accident of birth and heritage, I am fortunate to be multilingual and multicultural. I was born in Tanzania and raised in Botswana in a family that immigrated to East Africa from North India. I spoke Hindi, Punjabi, and Kiswahili before I learned English, French, and Setswana in school.
I first came to the United States as an international student at the University of Chicago where I completed my undergraduate and Master’s work and pursued my doctorate in international education at Stanford University. I studied abroad and conducted fieldwork in France, India, South Africa, and Botswana. My most memorable travels have taken me throughout the Caribbean (Aruba, St. Martin, Jamaica, Turks, and Caicos) and Indian Ocean islands (Seychelles and Mauritius). I have yet to journey to South America. I have taught courses in education, international development, human rights, and women’s studies at Agnes Scott, Spelman College, and Stanford University. My two children and I relish learning about our worldwide connections through storytelling, travel, mandala coloring, and cooking. I aspire to be a chef of creative plant-based recipes that my children would enjoy.