Well we did get the letter finally on Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, they needed some clarification on a few issues. I am waiting on a letter from a collaborator and then I'll be able to turn in the corrections for expediated review.
In the meantime....we are visiting the villages to let them know that we are delaying the start date a bit so that they don't think we abandoned them.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Monday
Today is Monday, the day that the chairman said he would have the minutes approved so that he could give me the go ahead (or not...we may have to make changes) to start collecting data. I can't remember the last time I was so anxious about something. A week of hoping that everyday is the day they'll approve my study has built up some terrible anxiety!
Since I'm sitting in a cyber cafe killing time until my driver picks me up and I really have nothing to report on my project, I'll just fill everyone in on what I've been up to. I'm thinking of this weekend as the beginning of Malawi part II - new lodge, new friends (Matt comes today!), and if all goes well today.....actually starting to collect data!
Tiane and Kim left about 36 hrs ago, so technically I've been by myself. I moved into a new lodge yesterday morning and now I'll be staying in a dorm-style room. It's much less roomy and the breakfast is less exciting, but it's a lot cheaper and the bed is comfier :).
Yesterday was dreadfully dull. Nothing in Lilongwe was open so I started reading a terrible romance novel (the English choices at the lodge were Chaos and Cupid or Oliver Twist). I can't believe I didn't bring any books to Malawi, I guess I forgot how much waiting there is to do here... Luckily Richard is bringing me some books to borrow today. I did meet some interesting people at the Lodge yesterday. A group of 10 of us went to dinner last night. A business man, some adventurers and some world changers (I'll post more about our conversations later).
Saturday Tiane, Kim, Mr. Hakamada and Mr. Noda (the Japenese guys we met at Korea Garden Lodge) went to Kuliani village for Children's Corner. Since we didn't have enough bikes for the guys, we hired two bikes. I rode one on the way into the village. It was great! I wish I could travel like that all the time, very comfy seat and the driver was much better than me at biking through rocks and potholes. Also they only charged us like $1.50 to go several kilometers (we gave them more).
We taught the older kids how to do the human knot again. They also taught us some Malawian games. And Malawian versions of games like volley ball (you can use your feet). I can't wait to teach some American kids the hyena goat game that I loved (I got eaten). I also taught them Red Rover b/c it was my favorite in elementary school. They also seemed to really like hang man (why are all my games violent???). We enjoyed sharing KASO with Noda and Hakamada, the volunteers there demonstrate a side of Malawi that many people do not experience. That the organization is totally run by local volunteers sets it apart from the development projects foreigners facilitate.
Once again, nine o'oclock has become ten and I am still waiting for my driver......Maybe I'll get used to Malawian time before I leave. Picking up Matt at noon!
Since I'm sitting in a cyber cafe killing time until my driver picks me up and I really have nothing to report on my project, I'll just fill everyone in on what I've been up to. I'm thinking of this weekend as the beginning of Malawi part II - new lodge, new friends (Matt comes today!), and if all goes well today.....actually starting to collect data!
Tiane and Kim left about 36 hrs ago, so technically I've been by myself. I moved into a new lodge yesterday morning and now I'll be staying in a dorm-style room. It's much less roomy and the breakfast is less exciting, but it's a lot cheaper and the bed is comfier :).
Yesterday was dreadfully dull. Nothing in Lilongwe was open so I started reading a terrible romance novel (the English choices at the lodge were Chaos and Cupid or Oliver Twist). I can't believe I didn't bring any books to Malawi, I guess I forgot how much waiting there is to do here... Luckily Richard is bringing me some books to borrow today. I did meet some interesting people at the Lodge yesterday. A group of 10 of us went to dinner last night. A business man, some adventurers and some world changers (I'll post more about our conversations later).
Saturday Tiane, Kim, Mr. Hakamada and Mr. Noda (the Japenese guys we met at Korea Garden Lodge) went to Kuliani village for Children's Corner. Since we didn't have enough bikes for the guys, we hired two bikes. I rode one on the way into the village. It was great! I wish I could travel like that all the time, very comfy seat and the driver was much better than me at biking through rocks and potholes. Also they only charged us like $1.50 to go several kilometers (we gave them more).
We taught the older kids how to do the human knot again. They also taught us some Malawian games. And Malawian versions of games like volley ball (you can use your feet). I can't wait to teach some American kids the hyena goat game that I loved (I got eaten). I also taught them Red Rover b/c it was my favorite in elementary school. They also seemed to really like hang man (why are all my games violent???). We enjoyed sharing KASO with Noda and Hakamada, the volunteers there demonstrate a side of Malawi that many people do not experience. That the organization is totally run by local volunteers sets it apart from the development projects foreigners facilitate.
Once again, nine o'oclock has become ten and I am still waiting for my driver......Maybe I'll get used to Malawian time before I leave. Picking up Matt at noon!
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Waiting for chicks to hatch
On Sunday we held a pilot study. It was really exciting to finally see the project in action! We conducted the pilot in four households in Kuliani, Alton’s home village. Each KASO volunteer conducted an interview, Tiane and I took the measurements, and everyone used our pilot checklist to evaluate each other’s performances. The interviews went well, especially the participants’ willingness to share information. The interviewers were not quite as familiar with the questionnaire as they could have been, so a few things got mixed up.
For instance, I knew something was wrong when a couple of the questionnaires indicated that the child had consumed every possible kind of food except milk in the past 24 hrs. I thought the people were just trying to impress us and decided that we needed to do a better job on briefing the participants on the importance of providing honest answers (although it’s already part of our introduction).
Yesterday when we held our pilot evaluation meeting, Charles had summarized the major problems and indicated that what actually happened on the diet recall section was that one person had asked what the child had eaten in the past 4 weeks (the timeframe for the food security section) instead of 24 hours.
We discussed all of the sticky spots we’d uncovered during the pilot, everything from how close to sit to the person you are interviewing to not reading the section headings before questions. Yesterday, the interviewers practiced interviewing one another.
We are all ready to get started, just waiting on the National Health Sciences Research Council to give us the go ahead. They met a week ago, but we’re still waiting on them to finish up with the paperwork.
Today Charles and I met with someone at the council. The minutes from the meeting have to be approved by the chairperson before they will tell us the results. Apparently there is a 50% chance that we will have to do some revisions on the proposal before we can get started with data collection. So, we wait. Charles says I must be as patient as a chick waiting to hatch.
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