it is over.

(I wrote this post months ago, but it's no less true now. It may be even more true, since it's dry season and the water has been off for 2 weeks now. Back to water rationing...)

It is over. That's what Ugandans say when you run out of something. Oh, the 1000 ul pipette tips are over. Oh, the chicken is over. Or like yesterday when I'm talking to Agnes and mid-conversation she's like "oops, it's over" and I was like....our conversation is? But she was talking about the gas for the stove. It was over. And so was the water, and so was the power. It was one of those days.

When I say out of water, I mean out of water. Tororo city turns off the water sometimes, but it usually comes back fairly quickly. But if a water pipe bursts for some reason...then you begin to rely on the water in your tank. And if you have a guest at your house, and 6 people not even counting the guest...the water tank is over very quickly.

This actually happened within the first few days when I got here and I remember thinking "oh no, is it always going to be like this?" Apparently it's going to be like this about once every month and a half. Sigh.

When I say no water, I really mean no water. So we called the firefighters, like we did last time. They go to Mbale (or Kenya, if Mbale is out), get water, and come back to Tororo to fill anyone's tank who can pay for it. (I don't know what happens if there's an actual fire.)

Hooray the clinic is getting water. Imagine a hospital without water. GROSS

What was different from last time is that this time we got to ride in the fire truck from the hospital to our house, since they were filling the tank at the hospital first. The looks on people's face was we passed them in the front seat of the fire truck were to die for. Especially Feena's face as we pulled up to the house, which I wish I had captured on film.

IN A FIRETRUCK

The firehose had lots of holes, so it was leaking everywhere. A perfect substitute for a sprinkler! The kids (and us) enjoyed, especially after having zero water for half a day. Although, of course, not ideal when you should be in water conservation mode.

From the truck to our tank! 

Aaaand then we both took a picture with Nelson, our fire department/police contact, who was upset with us that we never call him except when we need water. Lolz.

So - back to the present - it's dry season now, and everything's super dusty. I'm not sure how long it will be until we have to call Nelson again, but I'm betting it will be sooner rather than later =(.

main hospital ladies!

Yup, that's Katie and I. Apparently we don't even need to tell boda drivers where we're going now. Cuz we're "main hospital ladies." But the same driver also called us "Obama's girls" - I think because we're American - and that just makes me think what a surreal trip it must be to be president. I bet if Obama had a magic globe that lit up whenever someone said his name (referring to him) (including when babies are named after him) it would be like a disco ball. Surreal.

Another thing we learned today from a different boda driver: Katie and Jessica are Ateso names. Really! I had no idea. (There are many, many languages in the region where we live - Ateso is one. But somehow I doubt Jessica and Katie are original Ateso.) This same boda driver, after learning that we both have cars in the US (no bodas), also wanted us to bring him a car from the US. And I think he was totally serious. But first Katie and I are thinking about importing a car from Japan for ourselves.

Also funny: playing charades with your boss and having him
1) realize that you know nothing about plants (I really, really thought pineapples grew on trees. Who knew? Not Katie either.) (This makes dealing with our garden really difficult. How do I know so little about plants? I have to google everything about them. Ridiculous.)
2) Get mad because regardless of your basic lack of plant knowledge, your nonverbal communication with your roommate is perfect enough that she can guess "venus fly trap" within 10 seconds of you falling on your ass.

This weekend - well really just Thursday/Friday - I'm traveling to Kisumu in Kenya to go to a UCSF conference. I want to go for the research/networking (haha I'm literally the worst networker in the world...sigh) but the logistics are annoying as hell. It's going to be quite the adventure, and expensive too (visas). But I think Doris will pay for it since it's in the name of research travel.

Minor happenings in Tororo:
1) We made awesome Mexican food. Using cilantro from our own garden!! Crazy.
2) We discovered a store that sells homemade ice cream which is wayyyyy better than the usual storebought stuff, and it's awesome. It's a guessing game as to exactly what the flavors are, but they are delish.
3) It's finally dry season. So basically it's a bit hotter and way dustier.
3) I dyed my hair for the first time ever. I'm not sure how I feel. I already miss my old hair. I think that's why I've never dyed my hair before - I knew I would feel regret as soon as I did it. Well, I do like how this looks in the sun, just not indoors. It's too dark!

BEFORE:

Indoors

Outdoors

AFTER:

The look varies pretty dramatically based on the lighting conditions. Anyway! We'll see how I feel in a week!

Bonus picture of how big Ellie is now (she has a collar with a tag!! aww):

And still totally friggin crazy.

the start of something

I know I haven’t been blogging a lot, but have I ever been reading. I’ve read more books here in the past 4 months than I can remember reading in the last 3 years of medical school, save when I first got my Kindle – it feels that dramatic. While I love reading, I sink a little too deep into the book. I just can’t, or don’t want, to do anything but read the book. When I have to stop and go to work/socialize/be a normal person, I feel foggy and like I’m in the wrong world. I think that’s pretty much why I had to tone down the reading a ton in medical school – there’s no way you can walk into a patient’s room with a book and read in between all the boring parts of their story. Haha. But when I’m deep into something, that’s what I want to do – I want the book to fill in every single extra minute of my time. It makes me a spacey and less productive human being,  I think. Though maybe a more interesting one in the long term? Hard to tell.

It’s a Friday night here and I’m sitting at my desk drinking white wine and eating Toblerone. This is not significantly different from what I would do anywhere else on a Friday evening, so that’s nice. And we're going to Beth's to eat pizza and watch our "home video" of the"Safari Blue" trip from Zanzibar, in which video we are filmed as we discover that we are not actually on Safari Blue. Also, Italians like flags.

Picture from our Safari Blue day. We were trying to re-create all of the super wonderful photos we lost from our first snorkeling trip.

Christmas away from home was haaaard. It was so hard. I think it’s worse because we got robbed in Zanzibar, and getting robbed always feels like such a personal violation (and this time, even more so). And I just wanted to be HOME and have the people I love most around me. But you can’t always get what you want! And actually I had three awesome friends with me and we made the most of the trip anyway.

Zanzibar was beautiful – imagine the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico and the clearest water you’ve ever seen. The night sky also had the brightest stars I’ve seen in a very long time – even Tororo apparently generates much more light than Zanzibar. The starwatching was phenomenal. However, it was so hot and humid that you would literally wake up in the night covered in sweat, choking on the air. The only place I’ve been that’s comparable is Thailand. And the roads were terrible, and of course we got robbed. But I’m still glad we went. Plus, it was so good to see Sarah and Emily and get to know Beth better. We made a pretty awesome traveling group for 4 girls who hadn’t all met each other and who had to share 1 bathroom all trip. Haha.

Some beachy beach/Christmas pictures:

Christmas eve presents from Beth! Weird faces abound.

And Christmas morning! I barely recognize myself without glasses anymore.

About to have an amazing seafood lunch (2 lobsters!! all for me!!) on the Safari Blue trip.

Once we started getting our hair braided by Beth, we couldn't stop.

Beautiful sunset! Picture made more beautiful by Beth - she was able to photoshop out our wet-swimsuit markings. Haha.

Emily, celebrating in the ocean.

So. pretty.

 Then after we got back from Zanzibar I headed to the Hairy Lemon for New Year’s Eve. It was fun – it always is – but it was also sad because Hollie is leaving, and she’s part of what makes the Lemon so amazing! So we split a bottle of champagne and rang in 2012 in a happy/sad fashion.

Here we are watching "Dinner for One," a bizarre German NYE tradition, apparently. It has nothing to do with NYE, but it's pretty lolz.

Panda masks!! The theme of the party was "PANDAMONIUM." Somehow every party I have been to in Uganda has involved pandas; I'm choosing not to think too hard about that.

Hankar and Stas. Hankar has been at the Lemon every time I've been there, and will be there until April - as long as I'll be here! What a life. Stas is Russian, and hilarious. I have no words to describe how funny (much like Hankar, who rarely speaks.)

My project at work is totally doing a 180. Not that I’m too sad about it – it would have been great if the cultured Elispots worked, but they didn’t. So now I’ll be focusing on flow cytometry. I think that’s super cool anyway, as far as the science goes, and it’s a technique that would be good to know if I decide to continue to do immunology research in the future. So hooray! It’ll take a while to get the assay up and running, but it will be fun to pick and choose which kids I think will have interesting findings. Hopefully I’ll also have the opportunity to do a little secondary data analysis as well. I’m just not very good with Stata on my own, so I’m looking forward to having Grant here (Sunday!) and Pras (23^rd!) so they can lend me some much-needed help.

Also – another reason to look forward to the rest of January – the whole month is going to be like Christmas. Katie’s bringing back all sorts of things from the US for me from family, Tami and Kamna sent me packages, and I just got my first mail to Tororo – ever – from the Davis family and Lauren.  The goodness will only continue!

Let’s see what 2012 has got in store. 2011 was strange! I keep trying to think of the one most important thing that happened, or the one defining moment…but it all was just so different from Balto to SF to Uganda. But I have to admit, on review of my fb album from this summer, the summer in SF was SUPER fun. I’d definitely do that over again. And I’d choose this same Doris Duke program too, so! Victory!