By Dr. Christopher Loffredo
Before Wi-Fi, WhatsApp, and real-time Zoom calls, there were letters. And I mean real ones—folded, stamped, handwritten on paper that often arrived creased, coffee-stained, and treasured.
During my early research years, letters were lifelines. I’d get one from home describing Thanksgiving dinner while I was eating goat curry in Kenya. I’d send one from Cairo trying to explain why I’d been temporarily banned from a hotel (spoiler: a lab cooler full of liver samples can raise suspicions).
These letters slowed things down in the best way. They made me reflect, choose my words more carefully, and sometimes write things I hadn’t yet processed aloud. They were postcards from a mind in motion.
Today, I still have a box of them—proof that before “global health” became a conference buzzword, it was personal. Handwritten. Human.