Deafening ear infections, disfiguring eye infections, mumps, hookworms, unspecified diarrhea, ringworm, colds that turn to pneumonia. Malaria. Things that could be prevented with a few simple enough if we cared enough interventions...soap, shoes, clean water, vaccines, antibiotics, a net and insect repellent. If I had been born here, I would have died 30 + times throughout my childhood. I would not have lived to see age 2. It's one thing to read statistics. It's something entirely different walking door to door seeing sick child after sick child after sick child and knowing that the nearest clinic is at least two hours away...
I'm still learning a lot every day. I changed my plane ticket again yesterday, so I am leaving on Tuesday instead of Friday. The team is sad about it, but I know they can do the interviews now just as well without me. They'll send me the data. I was hoping to stay until I got approval, but my meeting with the chairman was a waste of time. I'll refrain from posting about it on the internet, but if you'd like to hear me get on a soapbox please inquire within....
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Research
The data collection is going very well. Unfortunately, the study still has not been approved. I got a letter today stating that I was “still missing” three things. I showed the person at the office that these three things were not missing and he gave me the phone number of someone else to call. We have a meeting on Thursday. The good news is that KASO is free to conduct the interviews using my questionnaire whether or not the committee has given us the official approval.
So far, KASO has measured more than 80 kids in over 50 households. Among the families asked to participate, we have had 100% participation. The families that are not included in the sample are all asking the volunteers why they have not been included.
We’ve been interviewing families from Kudoku center for the past several days. Kudoku serves 13 villages and I’ve been to seven of them. The villages are all very small, probably an average of 20-30 households each. We are only sampling the households, so a lot of households are not included. All of the households are eager to participate. The ones that we are not including are asking for us to include them because they appreciate KASO’s assistance with the ECD program so much that they want to help out. I am getting the impression that they also like having visitors.
Yesterday I severely interrupted a church service in KASO’s Kudoku building when about 20 teenage girls insisted on having a photo shoot with me right outside. Everyone in the villages wants their picture taken. And they looooove seeing the pictures afterward. If I take a picture of a group of kids and then show it to them, the erupt into enormous yells and laughter. Everyone also laughs when I take pictures of their animals. Yesterday there were chicks, ducklings and piglets galore. It was pretty hilarious when about 20 kids tried to catch a piglet for me J.
Today I have been entering data….The data collection is going very well. Unfortunately, the study still has not been approved. I got a letter today stating that I was “still missing” three things. I showed the person at the office that these three things were not missing and he gave me the phone number of someone else to call. We have a meeting on Thursday. The good news is that KASO is free to conduct the interviews using my questionnaire whether or not the committee has given us the official approval.
So far, KASO has measured more than 80 kids in over 50 households. Among the families asked to participate, we have had 100% participation. The families that are not included in the sample are all asking the volunteers why they have not been included.
We’ve been interviewing families from Kudoku center for the past several days. Kudoku serves 13 villages and I’ve been to seven of them. The villages are all very small, probably an average of 20-30 households each. We are only sampling the households, so a lot of households are not included. All of the households are eager to participate. The ones that we are not including are asking for us to include them because they appreciate KASO’s assistance with the ECD program so much that they want to help out. I am getting the impression that they also like having visitors.
Yesterday I severely interrupted a church service in KASO’s Kudoku building when about 20 teenage girls insisted on having a photo shoot with me right outside. Everyone in the villages wants their picture taken. And they looooove seeing the pictures afterward. If I take a picture of a group of kids and then show it to them, the erupt into enormous yells and laughter. Everyone also laughs when I take pictures of their animals. Yesterday there were chicks, ducklings and piglets galore. It was pretty hilarious when about 20 kids tried to catch a piglet for me J.
Today I have been entering data….
So far, KASO has measured more than 80 kids in over 50 households. Among the families asked to participate, we have had 100% participation. The families that are not included in the sample are all asking the volunteers why they have not been included.
We’ve been interviewing families from Kudoku center for the past several days. Kudoku serves 13 villages and I’ve been to seven of them. The villages are all very small, probably an average of 20-30 households each. We are only sampling the households, so a lot of households are not included. All of the households are eager to participate. The ones that we are not including are asking for us to include them because they appreciate KASO’s assistance with the ECD program so much that they want to help out. I am getting the impression that they also like having visitors.
Yesterday I severely interrupted a church service in KASO’s Kudoku building when about 20 teenage girls insisted on having a photo shoot with me right outside. Everyone in the villages wants their picture taken. And they looooove seeing the pictures afterward. If I take a picture of a group of kids and then show it to them, the erupt into enormous yells and laughter. Everyone also laughs when I take pictures of their animals. Yesterday there were chicks, ducklings and piglets galore. It was pretty hilarious when about 20 kids tried to catch a piglet for me J.
Today I have been entering data….The data collection is going very well. Unfortunately, the study still has not been approved. I got a letter today stating that I was “still missing” three things. I showed the person at the office that these three things were not missing and he gave me the phone number of someone else to call. We have a meeting on Thursday. The good news is that KASO is free to conduct the interviews using my questionnaire whether or not the committee has given us the official approval.
So far, KASO has measured more than 80 kids in over 50 households. Among the families asked to participate, we have had 100% participation. The families that are not included in the sample are all asking the volunteers why they have not been included.
We’ve been interviewing families from Kudoku center for the past several days. Kudoku serves 13 villages and I’ve been to seven of them. The villages are all very small, probably an average of 20-30 households each. We are only sampling the households, so a lot of households are not included. All of the households are eager to participate. The ones that we are not including are asking for us to include them because they appreciate KASO’s assistance with the ECD program so much that they want to help out. I am getting the impression that they also like having visitors.
Yesterday I severely interrupted a church service in KASO’s Kudoku building when about 20 teenage girls insisted on having a photo shoot with me right outside. Everyone in the villages wants their picture taken. And they looooove seeing the pictures afterward. If I take a picture of a group of kids and then show it to them, the erupt into enormous yells and laughter. Everyone also laughs when I take pictures of their animals. Yesterday there were chicks, ducklings and piglets galore. It was pretty hilarious when about 20 kids tried to catch a piglet for me J.
Today I have been entering data….
Sunday, September 6, 2009
More on the lake
The project has begun! KASO started collecting data Wednesday, the day after we went to Senga Bay.
I'll start with the trip to the lake, though. I took the team + Richard (KASO's director) and two of KASO's nearly full-time volunteers as a thank you for all of their hard work on my project and to celebrate Labor Day (a few days early). It was incredible. I'd already been a couple of times on this trip (it's only an hour and a half away), but it was Mary (one of the permanent KASO volunteers) and Jona's first time seeing the lake. They are 44 and 37 years old and had never seen a large body of water. The expressions on their faces were priceless when they saw the lake. Even better was the sight of the whole group swimming. Everyone splashing around having fun, genuinely without a care in the world at that moment.
I didn't realize that there are no public beaches along Senga Bay. So...we were denied picnic access by three hotel/ restaurants (all owned by white people). Finally got to one owned by Malawians who let us use their patio for eating (including 2 tables and lots of chairs), their yard for cooking, their grill and their toilet facilities all day for about $15.00 total.
Both cars were stuck in the sand when we tried to leave, so there was a lot of pushing and digging when it came time to go.
I facilitated the death of two chickens that day. My unvegetarian selfish side was glad that they were freshly killed b/c I thought it significantly reduced the chance of my side of the road cabbage salad getting contaminated with salamanila as a result of knife sharing. We also got to eat rice instead of nsima, a very welcome treat! I'm getting used to the nsima, and actually look forward to it after a long hard day of biking (I'm usually starving), but I love rice much more.
I also aided in the destruction of Malawian forests by buying side of the road charcoal. I couldn't convince my friends that my four kilo bag from shoprite was enough for one meal, so we bought a basket of it as tall as me.
We all wore Obama t-shirts to the lake. I felt extremely silly walking through town that morning with the shirt on AND carrying a big bag of charcoal.
Friday, September 4, 2009
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