it's Christmas at our house!

I told myself you didn't really need a Christmas tree or Christmas decorations for it to feel like Christmas, but let's face it. Those were just silly lies I was telling myself! And holiday-themed stores popped up in town, in Tororo, and it was so easy to buy a little plastic tree and string it with fruit-lights!

Thank goodness we had power last night when I brought it home, because without the lights it's just a scrawny piece of green plastic.

It's adorable. They literally sat like this for at least 5 minutes, which must be some sort of record. <3

Jess Bloome's uncle sent this ridiculously awesome package full of kids' toys, like, pills that you put into water that turn into a train, a spinning spaghetti fork, and an animation praxismoscope (??). So we wrapped everything up and put it under the tree!!

Once we put the presents under it, Hope just looks longingly at the stuff she's not allowed to open. I'm actually really surprised they haven't been ripped into yet.

YAY CHRISTMAS

I'm super busy at work, and everything seems to be going wrong. Not with my experiments per say, but I can't analyze the data I'm getting from the experiments because literally everything in my technological warchest has imploded. SO. The next two days before I leave are going to be totally crazy busy.

And then I'm off to Zanzibar!!! Yay!!

my amazing friends

Hi all,

My posts are usually quite silly and never seem to focus on what I came here to do (work, science, etc). So I thought I would mention that I've recently added the links to several blogs by my extremely awesome, smart, dedicated friends. Katie's blog (adventuresinuganda) might parallel mine a little bit, since she's my roommate! Mara is based in Kampala, and has some really amazing stories related to the clinical trial she helps run in Kiboga, Uganda. (Her job is sorta what I wanted to do with my year off...but plans change!) Her blog gives great descriptions of the challenges faced in public hospitals here.

Topher is in South Africa, Emily is in Botswana, and Laura is in Peru - all Doris Dukers (Doris 4 lyfe). Oh and Melike in Malawi. Another amazing blog.

Obviously what everyone's working on varies - in fact, it ranges from malaria (me) to HIV (Mara, Topher) to pneumonia (Emily) to obstetric fistula (Melike, globalsurgery) - but it's all global health and it's all super inspiring. And if you have a sec, please go to Melike's blog and donate!

There are several great things about taking a year off to do research, and one of them has been getting to meet all of these amazing people. The Fogarty program put us (not just these blogees, but so many people!) together for 2 weeks in Bethesda and I've rarely vibed with a group so automatically. Can't wait to work with them as colleagues when we all decide to go ahead and finish our formal training =).

kla-BAM

Things have slowed down in the lab recently, so I didn't have much to do this past weekend to maintain my cultures since I only have 2 running currently. So I planned an excursion to Kampala, motivated mostly by my desire to eat non-rice-and-beans and buy SOMETHING dressy to wear in Zanzibar. Oh, and to hang out with my awesome Fogarty Kampala friends! Shout out to Devan for putting us up and taking us around. He really went above and beyond. As Jess Bloome said, his mother would be proud. Haha.

Our first night we went to Khana Kazana for Indian food. It was aaammazing. It was so good, I almost cried. No joke. Look how excited I look! 

Less excited about what I see on the menu at Kyoto, where we went for drinks later:

 We went to a going away party for Devan's friend Matt that I had met briefly in Jinja over Halloween. That's Devan giving quite the goodbye hug on the left there...Matt got cut out! It was a super fun time with tasty drinks and shisha too. Everyone else in the picture is REALLY excited about the salt and vinegar chips that were purchased at the end of the night.

 

I had seen Devan's fb photos of boxing at a gym he frequents, and I wanted in. So I had my first boxing training ever! It was 30 minutes of jumping around (thank goodness I've been working out, or that alone would have killed me) and 30 minutes of trying to jab when the instructors told me to. The hitting part was really, really fun. I'd love to do it again sometime. 

So intense.

Ready to go

I don't know why it's the East Coasts boxing gym. Which coasts?

 Then we had big big plans to eat lunch, go to the pool, and THEN go to the market. Mara invited us over for a really delicious brunch, but then it started raining and we all decided to forgo the pool and focus on the market. Good choice us! It was fun, and totally crazy. Devan held our bags and chatted to the sellers in Luganda while I tried on clothes over the clothes I had on. Hilarious times.

This doesn't really capture the craziness that is Owino. People often walk up and down these aisles with huge bags and stuff that will hit you in the head/eye if you're not careful.

Most stalls didn't have mirrors, so we took pictures on my camera so we could check ourselves out. I have a lot of photos like this, all just about as silly. I bought this dress for 5$ I think.

After the market we all went home to wash our feet (haha, totally necessary) and then regrouped for dinner at Mediterraneo. It was really Italian food, and it was soooo good. I had this amazing salad, and then cheesy pasta with bacon, and a chocolate souffle for dessert! I mean, really amazing food. Very expat-y place...with an amazing ambiance. If someone took me to a place this beautiful for dinner in the States I'd be so impressed!

Fresh salad?? Omg yes plz.

Then on Sunday we woke up, got hair cuts (mine actually turned out really nice!) and did a MASSIVE grocery shopping spree. I mean massive. You can get things in Kampala you just can't get here, so we packed our private hire full. I even got dog treats/bones/dishes/food for Ellie! Hooray!

I also got flea shampoo. So when I got home, we gave Ellie a much needed bath. She didn't like it much, but at least there was power so the water was warm. I have a bunch of hilarious pictures of our poor poor puppy, who by the way is a giant now. 

Anywayyyys. Puppy interlude was necessary. Going to Kampala was a really nice change of pace, although it doesn't feel at all like the Uganda I know. Luganda isn't really spoken out here, so I don't know any of the language, we don't take public taxis (matatus) here much because the town's just not big enough to have routes, and we certainly don't have Kampala's crazy traffic, crowds, and stores, or a huge expat community. Very different, which made for a fun visit. I'll definitely be back again!

Katie brought a card reader for my camera back from London, so I can get photos off of my point and shoot camera again! Hooray!!! So look forward to a post about Halloween and one about water/power that I wanted to post forever ago!

O-M-G I made a turkey!!

We paid our guard 40k in shillings and he came home with this turkey. Turkeys make a sound that is less annoying than a rooster's cocka-doodle-doo, but still really annoying at 6am. Here she is chillin' with our chickens.

 I thought making a turkey (well, making a tasty good one) would be super difficult. It just seemed like an overwhelming task at first. But when I saw our turkey (plucked and cleaned) I realized it was just a big chicken. And I make chicken all the time! Although I've never made roast chicken, but now I feel like maybe I should give that a try too.

All I did was saute some onions and garlic in butter until soft, and then added salt, pepper, and olive oil just so I had more liquid. I rubbed lemon halves all over the inside of the turkey and stuffed it with chopped carrots, quartered onions, garlic, and apples. I capped the open cavity with aluminum foil so the stuffing wouldn't fall out, and tied the legs together. Then I rubbed the whole turkey down with the butter mixture. I also cut underneath the skin near the breasts and poured some of the butter under the skin. Then I rubbed the entire bird with salt (as advised by the interwebs if you don't brine beforehand). After that, I just tied the wings to the sides, then put the bird breast-down in a huge pot and covered with foil. After an hour and a half, I took the bird out of that pot and flipped it right-side up on a deep cookie sheet, poured the drippings/butter sauce back over the bird, and put it back in without aluminum foil so the skin would get delicious and crispy. Then...I went back to work (haha) and Frederica flipped the bird once so both sides would brown. It turned out amazingly well!!


Evidence:

NOM

 I also made real stuffing on the side, and it was delish. While I was at work finishing some things, Frederica and Jessica mashed some potatoes, and when the turkey came out put in Jess' apple pie. It was such a delicious meal after having no variety for so long!

Frederica is focused on the food. No time for cameras!

Also, the power went off last night, so we had our feast in the dark. I'm glad we did the majority of the baking on Saturday, when we had power, so we could use Beth's electric mixer. None of this would have been possible without Beth - our oven doesn't work, and she graciously offered to let us use hers while she's back in the States. We probably owe her some gas money!

The only thing about the feast that didn't feel like Thanksgiving was that there were only 3 of us. Katie's in London, Beth's in the States, and though there are a lot of people from work that I would love to invite, I really didn't know how it was going to turn out and I didn't want to invite people over and then have bad food. Plus, the bird was actually pretty small - it fed about 4 people. And, of course, we were at Beth's, and I can't invite people over to a house that isn't mine! But as sooooon as we get our oven fixed, there will be a turkeyfest part 2, believe you me.

Agnes and the kids enjoyed the leftovers so much this morning (they had turkey for breakfast...haha) that I know I have to do this again, if only to see Feena and Hope so happy with grease all over their faces. Ellie was pretty happy too - we saved the thigh bones for her, and instead of biting us all morning she nommed on her bone for hours.

Yay! Now I feel like I celebrated Thanksgiving, even if it was tiny and dark. =D

there's always someone at home who never forgets who you are.

Being away from home for Thanksgiving, and the holidays in general, is so much harder than I anticipated. But it has given me a lot of time to think about what I'm thankful for - much more so than usual, when everything's busy and fun and a blur. So, even though I hate "Thanksgiving-thankful" blog posts, I do love making lists, and the list lover/time on my hands won out.

• I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to take a year off from medical school. I like the science I'm doing and I think it's important, but I also think I just needed a break. Room to breathe, to read a book, to walk to work, to hug a three year old every day, exercise, etc...I just had too much tunnel vision back home. Training to be a doctor really does feel like this one-way express train to MORE and I just needed to jump off the train and hobo around on the old slow ones that run between Jinja and Tororo and slooooow down. 
• I'm thankful that the people that love me, and that I love the most, have been generally supportive of my leaving for a year. It's not been easy for me either. I can't wait to come home to errybody.
• I love coming home to two kids every day. It's so fun. Even though they scream bloody murder half the time and steal my candy, what would our exercise videos every AM be without them getting in the way while mimicking us? How else would I get to hold a 3 year old every day? So worth it.
• I'm hopeful that Brandon might get to come visit! We're gonna climb Mt. Elgon. Woo wooo so exciting.
• Living here has made me conscious of all the things that I've never had to do without, that I take for granted 100% of the time in the US. Water, power, food. I mean, you should see me when we can't get internet in the US. It's kinda ridiculous. And it goes above and beyond that - I've never had to want for anything, really. Katie and I have talked about this in relation to the Occupy movement going on in the States. It's hard to get really excited about that when, honestly, those protestors might be the 99% in the US, but they are in the top 1% of the world. Maybe they should think about how they have access to water, sanitation, and healthcare. I understand that they're angry, I just maybe think there are other things worth directing that energy at. But I've always felt that way. Anyway, I want to do better at keeping everything in perspective, and being here has certainly taught me some lessons. 

Mosquitoes are literally buzzing in my ear and I can feel the 15 new bites my feet have (I wonder how many sporozoites were just injected into me?? gross) so I should probably get under my bed net. I miss you US peeps and I can't wait to come home. Eat some deep fried turkey/brisket/honey baked ham/pie for me!! =D

ellie has gotten so big!

Look at how tinyyyyy she was when we first got her! We thought something was wrong with her legs because she couldn't walk well, but she was just super tiny.

We bought her a bed. The first night we actually tucked her in. Haha.

Without covers.

She falls off a lot though. lolz. This time she remained asleep on the floor next to her bed.

Feena, clearly not feeling too bad with that broken arm.

Awwww the children being sweet to the dog for once.

Ellie likes having her belly rubbed. Beth likes holding baby puppies!

the latest haps

Wow, it feels like a lot has happened since I've last posted. Feena broke her arm last week (which we discovered when we got home on Thursday at 8pm...even though it happened at 1pm) and it was a hectic end of the week, getting her casted on Friday and then re-imaged on Monday to find that the original reduction had been pretty bad:

 Yikes!

So we went back to the "orthopedists" (only in quotations because I'm not sure exactly what their training is. They weren't doctors, I'm pretty sure) and they tried again (poor poor Feena): 

It didn't look ALL that much better to me, but I thought it might be close enough because of the location of the break and the fact that children can heal like crazy. But we were all unsure enough (and untrusting enough of the people working on her, who didn't even request that she be re-imaged in the first place, and refused to give her lidocaine when they re-set it) that I took a bunch of photos of the before and after xrays and sent them to Pras in SF so he could have a peds ortho person take a look at them. Luckily, they said that it's a common joke that the bones of the proximal humerus can be "in the same room" in children and heal just fine, so that makes me feel better. Especially because Feena hasn't really slowed down since the incident, wears her arm sling only half the time, and fell on her arm on Monday after we did all the imaging. So really who knows where the bones are now.

She was a tough little kid. Because no one told us when she got injured, and we got home so late, she had to wait overnight (with a broken arm!) before we could get an xray. Then, she didn't cry at all - only whimpered - when they gave her a lidocaine shot with a HUGE needle and then set the bone. I was so impressed. She was so wiped out by everything that she fell asleep sitting up while they were casting her. I have the cutest pictures of her, but of course I can't get them off my camera right now. She did cry when they didn't give her lidocaine, though. Ugh.

I found the entire experience really frustrating. I'm used to having total and complete faith in doctors and in people in the medical profession generally, and the men who worked on Feena just kept failing over and over again to meet my expectations. They didn't ask for a f/u xray, didn't give her lidocaine when they re-set the bone, and ALSO ripped me off (charged me when care is supposed to be free). Honestly, they seemed to just be lazy. I don't know any other way to describe it. At least they were right about the fact that their second reduction was good enough. Obviously I didn't trust their word on that one and went ahead and emailed Pras. And when would Feena have been taken to the doctor if we weren't there to rush things along? The mind boggles.

Also, maybe if the kids were being watched to begin with, this wouldn't have happened. Another older girl - 8 years old to Feena's 3 - pushed her off a concreted walled ditch into the concrete floor of the ditch. No wonder she got such a bad break.

Anyway, other things that have happened recently:

• Ellie has been vaccinated against rabies! Yay. And she is growing growing growing. However, she continues to bite like a crazed puppy demon. I'm going to start calling her Ells Bells.
• Katie's friends visited from Jinja, so we had a mini-party on a Tuesday night! That's pretty crazy for us here in Tororo
• Work....has been busy, and slightly more productive. My experiment is working a little better now, but still not quite as well as I'd like. Continuing to puzzle that one out...
• We have watched 9 episodes of Mad Men in the entire time I've been here. I think I'm busier than I expected. We're finally past the episodes I had watched on my own!
• I'm going to Zanzibar for Christmas!!!! SO EXCITED. Not as excited as if I were going home, but this will be a quicker & easier trip than that would be. I'm going to have to trick myself into the Christmas spirit since it's always 80 degrees here
• Peeps from various stores in town are bringing us dog food, chocolate, and a hair dryer from Kampala. Ellie just won't eat peas or beans, which is like 80% of our diet. She likes chicken/meat/fish just fine though. The hair dryer is for me, not for Ellie. I've worn my hair up every single day since I've been here and it's sufferinggg. 

Oh yes, and I've made some major changes to the blog recently. I liked having that dynamic view you could switch around, but it eliminated my top picture and all the links on the side, which I really like. So I nixed it for now (even though like, 100 people looked at it that day, which is a lot of people). I kept the background picture, though. We'll see if this layout sticks around or if I change my mind again.

Tear gas in Tororo Town

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1270708/-/bgvityz/-/

This morning we were walking to work (..at 11am, life is hard) and Katie's like "Do you guys hear gunshots?" And I say, well if they're gunshots, surely they're not shooting people. My reasoning was weak, but I just thought it was unlikely. And also that there would be a bigger hullaballoo if they were shooting people. But then not 2 minutes later about 20 bodas come racing down the road in the other direction, some carrying passengers but most not, and then a whole bunch more following very quickly after, honking and yelling. Katie started asking people on the side of the road what was going on and we heard various versions of the same story - that the police had somehow killed a boda driver and now all the bodas were protesting.

This is a boda boda. It's a dude driving a motorcycle and you sit on the back, so it's a motorcycle taxi! They are dangerous, for obvious reasons. Usually even the driver doesn't have a helmet. And if you could see the Tororo roads....

So we got to work safely and then for lunch didn't go far because we heard from others that the police were trying to subdue the riots in town by using tear gas and LIVE AMMUNITION. wtf. One of the doctors was trapped in town for like an hour just lying on the floor waiting to get to safety. So, even though we need eggs and toilet paper and I need more internet, we are just going to have to wait until tomorrow when things settle down.

Tororo is the quietest little town you can imagine, so this was a pretty crazy morning.

In other news, I have some really great blog posts coming up, particularly about water (or rather, our lack of it) and Halloween part 2, featuring pumpkin carving in the dark! However....I'm holding back for now because they would both be a lot better with pictures, and my camera is no longer connecting to my computer. I'm so bummed. I fixed one technology problem (kindle and ipod) and immediately my camera breaks. YARRRRR So I ordered a card reader to be sent to Katie's sister's in London, because she'll be there in 2 weeks for Thanksgiving. I might go ahead and do the posts without pictures but then add them in later. We'll see!

Things we have ordered to Katie's sister in London:
1) Seeds for our garden
2) Two bottles of Sriracha
3) Cheesecloth for our eventual goat cheese
4) 2 sets of resistance bands (for P90X) (lolz)
5) A headlamp for me, and camera reader for me. I am needy.

Look for new posts soon!!

jinja timez

things i gained in jinja:
1 roll double stuff oreos
1 roll peanut butter/choc swirl oreos
1 roll chips ahoy
3 small packages of pringles, one labeled "cheezy cheese"
1 terrifyingly sweet honey green tea
1 twix bar, immediately consumed
1 LED flashlight
FIRST PLACE PRIZE (a bottle of Amarula) FOR COSTUMES @ NRE as the Jager Bombardiers:


things i lost:
my jawesome headlamp =(

It was probably worth it.

The party was fun, and it was crazy different from our normal Tororo snails-pace life. After the party we went to the Hairy Lemon, which is a little island in the middle of the Nile that is basically made for chilling. And for kayaking, if you are so inclined.


I figure I better put off my major rafting and/or kayaking adventures until Mom sends me some contacts, because it might just be a bad thing to lose a pair of glasses to the Nile.

Sunrise at the Lemon was beautiful. I couldn't sleep, maybe because a monkey dropped onto the roof like BAM and I was like "WTF was that" because in my dream the bunk beds were dominoes and had all tipped each other over and I was like "oh good thing I'm in the middle of the room not in a bunk!" So I actually said "what was that?" out loud, but nobody responded and I figured it out, and then in the morning it turns out everyone had heard me and just chose to ignore me. PEOPLE = LAMEZ
MONKEYZ=LOUD
SUNRISE= AWESOME

On the ride home we got a call from Jess Bloome that the kids had somehow dropped and injured Ellie and so I was freaking ouuuuut all the way home, but when we got there she seemed ok, but breathing a bit weirdly. Katie was able to take her to the vet this morning (which we only knew about because I happened to get his number from a lady who sold me heartworm medication in town...because he doesn't work in the building labeled as the veterinary office anymore) and the doctor said her pulse was high and she was running a temp, and gave her some antibiotics. (The trip to the vet was apparently a blog post in itself - I'm sorry I missed it.) She seems to be doing better for now (and I have no idea what the truth is about what's really wrong with her, though I did try listening to her little puppy lungs) and I'm hoping for the best. We have to teach Hope and Feena to be a wee bit gentler. Anyway, keep Ellie in your thoughts.

That whole paragraph feels like a run-on sentence. Sorry.

ALSO termites were eating our wood!! Oh nos. So we have to treat the wood for the fence for our eventual garden that will keep out our eventual goat. Weirdness.

We maybe have figured out what is wrong with what I'm doing in the lab. Maybe. In 10 days we shall know for sure! I really hope it works cuz I am tired of working and then having no results to show for it. Le sigh.

T-1 day till furniture
T-3 days until possible Kindle and Ipod nano

YAY

mzung-zoo!!!

We're still getting a goat. DON'T WORRY. But now we also have a puppy!! We are creating a mzung-zoo!!!

Alternative name for this post: "A poopless dog is like a seedless watermelon. Convenient, but a little weird." (credit Jess Bloome) But then she pooped!!! Huge victory. I feel like a parent.

So we saw some people handing two puppies over a school wall, and as soon as we saw Ellie (short for Elephant) we were in love. I was a little worried about how much work she would be, and it turns out I was right about that part. I think she was too young to be taken from her mother, so at first she cried all night and we had a really hard time feeding her. Here Katie is trying to feed her with a hole in a plastic bag:

Luckily we discovered on day 2 that she would lap milk out of our hands. Well, a weird milk-egg-oil-vitamin formula I found online. And on Day 3, she started taking it out of a dish! HOORAY!! It's only slightly less messy, but still. Now we have 2 messy kids AND a messy dog. The dog is more work, though. Katie and I trade off taking care of the dog overnight, since she wakes us up to eat and whine whine whine!

But she's so cute!

I think she's doing much better. She doesn't cry as much during the night anymore, she's pooped and her pee is clear, and now she's playing!! SO CUTE


Yay! Puppy wuppy. At least she'll be well socialized, since there are about 1 million children over here all the time. Wish us luck taking care of her!

feena and hope photoshoot

Photo credits to Katie!