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So I’m not a good blogger from Ethiopia - this much is clear. Today I am working in the Regional Health Bureau instead of the hospital where my office is. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier! One of the IT guys who is also helping me with the data has an extra desk next to his with an available broadband internet connection. WTF! As I said, how did I not figure this out earlier????
Anyway, the reason I am a terrible blogger is two fold…I am having too much fun to spend all day inside waiting for the freaking internet to load, and also the internet, well, until today, is god-awfully slow.
I just got back from a work/vacation weekend. I stopped at one of my sites to collect more data and do an interview, and then I went along with Sami (the guy) to Axum - the former capital of the Axumite empire - which was one of the biggest kingdoms in the 3rd-4th century AD. We took great pics and enjoyed ourselves tons.
I’ve moved again, yes, that’s right, I am currently in my 4th home. What’s that about not living like a refugee? That’s ok - I’ve gotten to live in all different situations and make new friends. I can’t believe I’m leaving Ethiopia in a week. It’s totally crazy. I am definitely not ready to go back to class….but I am ready to stop being “farangi”. So, I am finishing up my data - I am so excited. We have 750 first surveys, and almost 300 second surveys….we are tracking the women for one year….so I’m hoping this is a positive sign for the next 6 months…and then hopefully I can convince Ndola to let me come back to finish the work in January!!! I am giving a presentation on my data on Tuesday, and then Wednesday it looks like I’m going to Addis, and Friday - home! 
Hopefully you can see photos below - from this weekend…
going to go now…maybe more pics on Monday
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I do admit I have been severely lacking in my blog postings….but at least I’m having a good time and you can take some consolation in that.
I have moved house yet again, and hopefully for the last time. Unfortunately, my dear friend Temi has left after two years here to go back to the US. I miss her terribly, but she has given me the greatest housing situation so far in Mekele. I now legitimately live in a HOUSE – that’s right, my own bedroom, living room, bathroom, kitchen, and even a garden. Oh, and a crazy cat, named “Izo”, which is Tigrigna for “stop whining”….trust me, it fits him better than you could ever know. I am immensely happy there, being able to cook, and sit outside and read in the garden.
Work is going relatively well….I finally went on my second site visit on Friday – it was a packed car with the driver, Dr. Ammanuel, and I all squeezed into the front seat. We visited two more sites in the region of Tanqua Abergel…I think it’s so important for me to see where the data is actually coming from. Then I can really understand the importance of the work I am doing. I am a strong believer that providing access to family planning will reduce maternal mortality, so important when your house is maybe an hour’s walk to the road and then you have to try and make it a few hours to the nearest hospital (if you can hitch a ride – not the kind of travel I would want if I had obstructed labor, or something of that sort). So the data entry and analysis continues, and I continue to work on the menstruation data as well. That is all analyzed, now I am trying to write it up into a paper for publication. The struggle I am having of course is being able to access any kind of background on the topic – as it’s basically impossible to download articles from the internet. I may end up finishing it when I get back to the US!
I am now planning some more trips as well – Axum and possibly Bahir Dar as well, I may try to get Hannah, a friend from my program at Berkeley, to come up from Kenya to join me. The rainy season has started in earnest and I will go before I get caught in a downpour. I will do my best to update more regularly, I swear!
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–ok, so I’m going to stop leaving little comments on the top of Alice’s posts, as this looks like it might be a part time gig. And I don’t know how many new and exciting ways I can say that I miss here and am totally jealous!
I realize that perhaps my updates here have been the most exciting, but really my week is not too too exciting – I go to work every day, hang out with my friends, but I wanted to point out a few things I love about Ethiopia:
-amazing coffee with too much sugar
-ambasha, a kind of flat bread that is slightly sweet
-Tigrai-style dancing which involves much shaking of the shoulders
-the way Ethiopian men greet each other – the evolution of the shoulder bump becomes clear – but also the way everyone greets close friends – with three kisses!
-mixed fruit juice – my favorite is three layers – avocado, mango, and pineapple
-dating an Ethiopian guy so other guys don’t bother me on the street – ha!
-shopping with my American friend Temi
-all the kids who yell alternately “you!!” and “farangi!”, it’s pretty entertaining
-going out to bars, clubs, restaurants, things I could never do in Nepal!
-the weather – it is gorgeous
I am going to Wukro this weekend – I cannot wait. I am going to see more churches/monasteries and hang out with a bunch of Ethiopian lawyers. Good times…
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Hi again, everyone. Tatiana here, helping out our lovely Alice once again. Enjoy!
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I guess it’s about time for an update - not really sure what to write!
Work goes on as usual at an “Ethiopian” pace, and I have been
completely blessed in having met and made many friends, both Ethiopian
and ex-pats.
Work is going…with the power schedule - sometimes it is difficult to
know if there will be electricity when I get to work (and this is in a
huge hospital) - problems with Ethiopian infrastructure continue to
all areas of the country I guess. It took me two weeks to get a SIM
card because the telecommunications in this country is completely
controlled by the government and there were too many SIM cards on the
network so they’re just not issuing them anymore!
I will be traveling to some more villages this week - I have 8 total
to get to and have only been to 3 so far so I need to get to the
others to make sure that I will be able to write my report at the end
of the summer. Until then I will begin analyzing the data I have.
I am very happy with my living situation - renting the room is working
out very well. The Ethiopian women working there have adopted me into
their work family and I feel happy to have people around to talk to.
People have mentioned sending me stuff…I don’t think it’s possible -
but I will look into it.
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Now I am sad as Sally left this morning – and I am all alone in our big room. I guess now I finally have to get down to work. Too bad it’s the weekend! I had such a great time when Sally was here and I was also made lots of other farangi friends. There is Temi, from the US, Prem from India, Gina from Ireland, and lot of revolving others. The question now is where I should live. I could stay in the hotel where Sally and I have been staying (it is about $4 a night) or move to another hotel that might be nicer but would be twice the price, OR I could move into a room above an Indian restaurant owned by a Pakistani woman. It would be a little cheaper, but not by much (like less than $1 less per day) and I might just make up the difference in travel costs as it is more in the south of town compared to where I’m living now which is right in the center of town. I can’t decide! I like the idea of not living in a hotel – but at the same time I like having my own space and not having to socialize if I don’t want to. I may move over there on a trial basis…maybe a week or something! I guess you can’t have everything you want!
I may have mentioned that Sally and I were taking a trip to Lalibela – it was great, even though it took us a day and a half to get there and to get back – total the trip took 4 and a half days with a day and a half actually in Lalibela. Of course the bus rides were crazy – on one we managed to run out of gas, but we were able to take care of it relatively quickly (about 40 minutes!) Lalibela is considered the “Petra” of Africa, and in quite a small area there are 13 rock-hewn churches which were carved directly out of the rock. We were able to attend Ethiopian Orthodox mass on Sunday morning (at 5:30am!) and then hired a guide to take us into all the churches. Unfortunately I don’t have the facilities to upload pictures right now, but maybe at some point!
Now that Sally and Paige and Amita (the other Bixby staff members) are all gone, I guess it’s time to get to work. I have created the data bases, collected the first round of data (from three of the eight villages) and started entering it. I hope to be done with it by the end of the week so we can go get more!
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The past couple of days have been a whirlwind of activity – definitely
different from the first couple days I was here! My professor, Ndola,
has been here for the past three days with her daughter and two other
women from the Bixby Center for Population and Family Planning. We
have had a number of meetings with the head of the Tigrai Health
Bureau to discuss the formation of a new project. This project will
develop a system to formalize an accurate reporting of vital
statistics (births/deaths). Currently, people are required to pay at
the government office to register a birth or death. Many people don’t
report these events, which makes it difficult to accurately determine
causes of death. This is important to us because we want to know how
many women are dying of maternal causes. Tuesday we traveled to 3 of
our 8 sites to collect data for the Depo project which Sally and I
will begin to develop a database for today and start entering data. We
were traveling all day in the back of a Land Rover getting dusty and
bumping up and down. It was the kind of trip that I wish every head of
the WHO or UN or all those people who developed the UN Millennium
Development Goals could take. Then they could really understand why
just advising women to get to the nearest health facility when they
experience complications during birth is just not possible for
everyone!
We all had a great time together and I was sad to see Ndola and her
daughter leave, but the other two women (and Sally) will be here for
another week. Sally and I are also thinking about taking a quick trip
to Lalibela to see the rock-hewn churches…it may take us a few days
with the way the buses run! I hope to be able to post pictures soon, I
may be getting a share of an office in the Tigrai Health Bureau and
then I will have broadband internet…wooooooo!
Finally, I got to watch some BBC yesterday and I am very excited about
Obama…yay!
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Well…life in Mekele with Sally is lovely, I can’t believe I only have her for two weeks! We are having such a great time exploring together, and not being farangi (”foreigners”) all alone. The past two days have been packed, with us exploring Mekele, and meeting with Dr. Amanuel – the professor and doctor in charge of the project. Tomorrow we will meet up with Dr. Prata – my professor at Berkeley, and start getting the project in motion…
For those who don’t know, this project is looking at community distribution of Depo Provera by community outreach workers. There is a huge unmet need for contraception in Ethiopia, and Depo (an injectable contraceptive you get once every three months) is in high demand for various reasons – you only have to think about it four times a year and other people (your husband…) don’t necessarily have to know about it. This study is comparing a cohort of women receiving the injection the traditional way till now (traveling from their home to a health clinic – maybe a few hours) and those who are the “experimental” group and are receiving the shot from community outreach workers trained specifically for this project. Ultimately the goal of the project is to show that women are just as satisfied and the shot just as efficacious through this method of distribution. Hopefully this will lead to a change in policy and give many more women access to contraception.
The project is currently collecting the 13 week data from the 9 sites around Mekele. This will be data right before or after the second shot. I am entering and analyzing this data, as well as some other things yet to be determined. I may be assisting with a verbal autopsy project (interviewing family members about women’s deaths to try and get an idea of how many died from “maternal” causes). I’m sure when Ndola arrives she will put her foot down.
So tomorrow the real work starts, and we will be busy I’m sure. The weather is beautiful and warm, and Sally and I are living in a massive hotel room for 46 birr a night ($4 - $2 each). However, we may try and find an apartment that might be a little more comfortable. Regardless, Sally is super fun and we are already planning a trip to see the rock-hewn churches in Axum or Lalibela…maybe next weekend! I will do my best to blog regularly but internet is not always as cooperative as one might hope…
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I am now in Addis, having arrived yesterday afternoon. However, I hadn’t had much sleep the past few days and therefore promptly fell asleep, only to wake up in the night, read a little, and went back to sleep. This morning I woke up to the sounds of the mosque nearby and the birds outside my window… “those birds sound extremely close” I thought…their chirping growing increasingly louder…all of a sudden the bird on my windowsill decided to enter my room and couldn’t get out. Great! My first morning in Addis I will be attacked by a crazy bird in my room…It spastically fluttered around inside the curtain as I tried to urge it toward the fresh air. Finally it hopped out (I checked) but not without leaving some terrified excrement on my windowsill.
I had to take this as a sign – I needed to get out of my room and explore the city. I got up, had breakfast, and decided I would venture outside to walk around the Piazza – the area I’m staying in. The problem – as I’ve known before – is the fact that I’m a blond woman alone and I don’t speak Amharic…I started to think – it was very few times I walked around in Kathmandu alone and while I could have managed there, it was just nicer to have someone else with you to deflect people’s advances. I immediately picked up two guys who wanted to walk with me and talk…I chatted to them a little – but it’s hard to really brush off people when you don’t know where you’re going…I guess I will get in a taxi in a little bit to make my visits to the Ethiopian Airlines office to confirm my flight for tomorrow and maybe to St. George’s church to see where Haile Sallasie is buried. I will then go to Mekele in the morning, where I will meet with Sally and Dr. Ammanuel, and try to get situated there. It’s not that I need another faranji/whitey with me to walk around – just anyone so it’s not just me all alone! However, I am just fine and looking forward to finally having some Ethiopian food – injera and kai wat. More when I get to Mekele.
