Culture shock.

It’s one of those things that is unexplainable. It must be experienced to be understood.

“For anybody to see different parts of the world, it changes your perspective and outlook,” Mitiku Mamo said. “Everybody should experience that. Everybody should go somewhere.”

Two Wayne State College faculty members are getting ready to undergo what we call culture shock.

Dr. Barbara Engebretsen, a professor in Health, Human Performance & Sport, and Multicultural Center director Leah Keino will start their trip on Jan. 22, 2015.

They plan a two-week stay in both Ethiopia and Nepal, returning on Feb. 18.

“We are looking for an opportunity for students to get involved in a developing country,” Keino said.

The women agree that Wayne State has both a well-established service learning program and international studies. Engebretson and Keino have been working for months to combine the two and create international service-learning exchanges.

Believing that it is the most misunderstood continent in the world, they made Africa their initial target.

After the duo researched several countries, they identified Asia’s Nepal and Africa’s Ethiopia as safe and stable, and the most promising countries to start an international service-learning program.

Engebretsen and Keino plan to meet with educators, health professionals and other community members in these countries, seeking to gain partnership with WSC for such public health activities as diabetes screening, blood pressure testing and promoting health literacy.

“We are not going to tell them what to do. We are going to meet and see what we can do together,” Engebretsen said.

Although Engebretsen and Keino started this project themselves, they have received a great amount of support along the way.

“We are doing this ourselves,” Engebretsen said, “but we could not do this by ourselves.”

They have worked with international programs director Gerald Conway and service learning coordinator Lisa Nelson to help combine the two programs. Other campus community members have played smaller but significant roles.

“Putting together a program like such has been a tremendous work load, but ‘local contacts’ keep blossoming,” Engebretsen said.

This is where Mamo, Brigid Griffin, and Bipul Pokhrel come in.

Both Mamo and Griffin have lived in Ethiopia before, leading Engebretsen and Keino to connections there.

Engebretsen participated in a seminar in Wisconsin, where she met a group of 13 students and a teacher from Nepal that she is still in contact with.

Pokhrel has also been an important contact for Nepal connections, along with teaching Engebretsen some of the language.

Keino and Engebretsen are not working with an organization to package this program, but they are working with one that will help them organize future travel. This assistance is essential for coordinating 15 to 20 students in future endeavors.

Keino’s previous experience with developing an international service learning program at Iowa State was quite helpful. She has already done the necessary steps and knows what procedures need to be done. She had the contacts with the U.S. State Department and the Bureau of Cultural Affairs.

Although Engebretsen and Keino will be staying with some of their Nepal connections during part of their trip, there are still many other expenses that need to be covered.

The trip is totaling somewhere between $5,000 and $6,500. A few grants have been available, and the duo’s supervisors and departments have been financially supportive.

They aim to bring a more affordable program to the table once they explore and decide which country is best for their program. For now, it is pricey because they are visiting two different countries.

The planning and exploring should be done by the summer, leading them to begin the program in 2016.

“It will be an amazing experience for students,” Griffin said. “To experience something so different that you can’t relate to.”