Claire et Jérémie en vadrouille...

We don't get a lot of visitors out here in Tororo. In fact, we usually get exactly zero (unless you count project PIs and residents from UCSF, and actually yes we do count them, because they're still relatively rare and that totally counts when you have exactly zero other visitors.)

However, the last two weeks have been totally crazy in terms of visitors. Tororo "blew up" so to speak. It was super fun! The first to arrive were Claire and Jeremie. They are from Lyon, France, but they have been bicycling across Africa for the last year and a half. Yes - that's right. The last year and a half. They're pretty amazing - so bright and funny, artistic and super talented, and still so down to earth. And of course now they have some pretty amazing stories and experiences to share. And they share them before breaking out the accordion duets, so, you know. Their visit alone pretty much made our month!

Sussing out which duet would be right.

Even for a couple bicycling across Africa, I don't think Tororo is a common stop. But our friend Beth has a profile on couchsurfers, and when Claire and Jeremie aren't staying in their tent, they sometimes use couchsurfing.com as a way to stay somewhere for a little while. Lucky for us, they emailed Beth and Beth invited them to stay a while!

Everyone got in on the accordion action. Everyone now wants to learn to play accordion.

They ended up staying 3 nights instead of 1, so Pras got to meet them when he arrived as well!

Claire also plays the clarinet - started playing it long before the accordion, actually!

Out last night of seeing them (at the IDRC party!) before they took off to cycle to Jinja and Kampala!

Anyway, they have definitely inspired me to join couchsurfers as a way to meet awesome people! Maybe when I get back to Baltimore....

This is their website: http://voyage.jeremiebt.com/  Even if you can't read French, you can get an idea of just how long their journey has been.

One thing that Claire said really stuck with me. When we asked her what the hardest part of the trip had been, she said cycling through Spain was the hardest part (toward the beginning of the trip) because "she had never cycled much before."

So that must be love, to get on a bike when you really haven't done that much before and commit to getting on it every day for the next two years as you bike across >20  countries.

I hope I get to "see them over the seeaaaaa" sometime as Jeremie would say. (Jeremie comes to Denton, TX for artist conventions - now there's a strange connection.)

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!

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!