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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!
