Saudade in the Spice Isle: Reflections from Grenada
Sarah Olson
2nd Year MPH Global Health Epidemiology Student
Returning to the United States after a week in Grenada, my heart feels the fullest that it has felt in a very long time. I feel so incredibly thankful for the opportunity to be in PHAST and participate in this extraordinary deployment experience. There are not enough words in the dictionary to describe our week in the Spice Isle. Working with the Child Protection Authority has been a truly transformative experience, and one that I will take with me long after my time at Michigan. I was continuously inspired by the passion and dedication of Miss Renee Campbell, Miss Jicinta Alexis, the Ministry of Social & Community Development, Housing and Gender Affairs, and all the key players in the push to create the new child protection manuals for Grenada.
Community-focused field work has been one of the highlights of my time at University of Michigan and PHAST. During the 2025 San Antonio trip, I was able to interact with the community in a completely different way than I had previously. Their resilience and hope stuck with me since then and helped me to prepare for this trip. In Grenada, I was struck by the immense passion that everyone in our focus groups held for the betterment of child protection measures. Everyone had their own stories that they brought to the table. Our conversations brought people of many backgrounds together, all with different experiences but a common aspiration to create safe spaces and protective policies for children across the island. They were not there to simply share their stories, but also to call for tangible solutions– to ignite a fire for action and change. These conversations have inspired me to continue to do my part in transforming community perspectives into solutions, to turn reactions into action.
Since I began studying public health, I have been across the globe (Grenada being my twelfth country). I have met people from all walks of life and have learned more about the world and myself in the past three years than I had in the twenty years preceding. As I reflect over my week in Grenada, a specific word immediately comes to mind– a word that I first heard in Brazil a couple of years ago: saudade, a Portuguese word that cannot be fully translated into English. Saudade is the bittersweet melancholic feeling of longing for something. It is reflective, happy, thankful, inspiring, painful, and many other emotions as well.
I feel saudade for our time in Grenada. I am grateful to the Child Protection Authority, for the community and their passion, for the hellos and goodbyes, and for the island. I am inspired by the members of the community and the work that my wonderful teammates and I completed and are continuing to pursue. I feel incredibly sad to leave Grenada, but hopeful for the future.
No matter what, time doesn’t stop–days go by, weeks turn into weekends, and life continues. One thing that will never change, however, is the memories of Grenada: warm smiles and handshakes, inspiring conversations, late-night qualitative analysis sessions, the sun and the rain, lingering scents of cinnamon and nutmeg, and an all-encompassing, heartwarming sense of community. As my time at Michigan comes to an end and I prepare for what lies ahead, I know that the experience and knowledge gained from Grenada will stick with me forever.
