Tanzania is pretty amazing

Hello! I knew that when I started this blog, I would be faced with initial disinterest. My friend Judy told me about 1.5 years ago that blogging was passe. If it was passe 1.5 years ago, is it super passe now, or is it retro? Food for thought. Anyway, I'm glad to hear that people are keeping up - I'll try to make things more interesting in the future!

Anyway, right now I'm in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. We arrived on Monday and did 2 half-day trainings yesterday and today. The group we were training is called the Mkapa fellows, and they are Tanzanian clinicians who receive additional training and salary as incentive to spend 3 years in a rural district providing HIV care. It's an interesting mix of people who seem genuinely committed to caring for people who have harder access to care and those who are doing it for the financial incentives. Either way, I think the benefit of their participation will outweigh any possible concerns about their decision to participate.

We've finalized our safari plans: we're going to a place called Mikumi for the weekend of September 8th. There will be a link on this blog to more information about the park, but I have been guaranteed that it will be the best experience of my life. So stay tuned!

Tanzania: The next destination

Okay, so we arrived safely in Addis Ababa. It is a fascinating city - as one book said, it's where the ancient world meets modern Africa. Having never been to any other part of Africa, I can't really comment on its difference, but so far, I love it. We're staying in a house owned by CHAI that is luxurious and ridiculously large. We'll be here for just a few days before we head to Tanzania for about 2 weeks to give a talk to some Tanzanian doctors and then head to the southern part of the country (Mtwara) for about a week to do some resource planning with a rural clinic. After that, we're taking the weekend to go on safari! I anticipate that this will be absolutely incredible, so expect some glorious photos in a couple of weeks.

For now, I'm still aware that African geography is tough, so here's the same map as before, but with Tanzania circled. Be sure to check out the clickable interactive map of Africa in the links on the right to learn more about these countries and all the other wonders of the continent.

The great eyepatch bet of '06

As many of you know, I was recently involved in a bet. For those of you who don't, I'll give you a quick rundown of the terms. I work with 3 other people, 2 of whom are with me in Ethiopia (Meg and Adam) and 1 of whom (Elizabeth) is not, largely due to the fact that she was due to give birth this week. Being the unique group we are, Meg, Adam and I placed a bet on the sex of Elizabeth's impending child.

The bets:
Meg: baby will be a girl
Adam and Kate: baby will be a boy

The stakes:
Loser(s) has/have to wear an eyepatch on the flight to Ethiopia.

For some reason, I felt quite confident that this baby would be a boy. Many of you might know that I rarely place bets that I'm not 98% certain I'll win. This was a clear exception, because it's obvious that there's no way I could have any certainty in this bet. Nonetheless, the hands were shaken and the bet was on.

This past Saturday night, I had a get together with a number of my friends and coworkers to celebrate my impending departure. Around 9pm, we received a text message. The sender was Elizabeth, and the message said the following: 2 I patches. Girl.

As I try to be true to my word (with the one exception of when I bet Kersten that she couldn't make a basketball shot and she did and then I didn't pay up - Kersten, I'll make it up to you some day, I promise), I slapped the patch on immediately when we got seated at the gate at Logan.

In case you're wondering, the matching outfits weren't part of the bet, it just so happens that all 3 of us wore the exact same outfit for our flight. Jeans + black t shirt: the CSHOR uniform.

Prizes may be awarded to the person who can come up with the best plausible explanation for why 2 people travelling together might both be wearing eye patches on opposite eyes.

What I'm doing

I recently found out something interesting: no one knows what I'm doing in Africa. So I'm going to try to explain it in a few sentences.

We (the Consortium for Strategic HIV Operations Research, or CSHOR) are using a mathematical modelling tool to do resource planning with governments. I know what you're thinking: Huh? We work with HIV treatment programs to help them plan their resource needs, and by resources, I mean human resources, HIV drugs, and lab tests. We'll be travelling all over the region doing this, so Ethiopia is just home base.

Hope that makes sense!

Where I'm going

Let's face it. Geography is hard. So here's a map of Africa, with Ethiopia conveniently circled. Addis Ababa, the capital, and where I'll be living, is in the dead center of the country.