Malawi Trip Tracker

Sunday, February 18, 2007

africa pace, really?


just wondering if someone can get life to slow down a bit? anyone? help?

i feel like i have so much going on here. i love it, love what i do and the people that i work with, but am feeling a bit spread thin, overwhelmed and exhausted. suppose that is better than the alternative.

had a wonderful day yesterday - attended a blessing for my new godson baby Joe, the beautiful son of two great friends here. it was such a special day!

but alas, details must wait, for i am off on a site visit, in well, 15 minutes ago. will be out of town, and therefore out of touch, for the next week or so. but know that i am thinking of you all!

Monday, February 05, 2007

typical day

i have given up on the concept of a typical day in malawi. or a typical week. i have found every day to be full of somethings new - things challenging, fun, exciting, upsetting, frustrating, inspiring, and as you can imagine if you feel all these things everyday, sometimes just exhausting. examples - well last week:

monday: catch up, catch up, catch up. work consisted primarily of a meeting with the electronic data systems task force and EDS developers. CDC has long been engaged in a project to bring EDS to support patient care at HIV treatment centers. basically, the sites are treating so many patients, that management and supervision is nearly impossible with the current paper system. there is a long history for this and i have jumped on the tail of the whole EDS development process to assist in the evaluation of the EDS pilot. had a "work" dinner at a colleagues to continue the networking.

tuesday: more EDS meetings, and then catch up, catch up, catch up on all of the things that i had hoped to do on monday but didn't get to. left "early", like on time, to go to the african-influenced dance class that i am sort of co-teaching. long, and somewhat surprising, story, but the short of it is that myself and two other great folks (jerome and connie) are preparing a dance class for adults and then just shifting teaching roles. WAY outside of my comfort zone, but maybe thats why i find it so satisfying.

wednesday: have been pulled into a really interesting project that is looking at the equity in the distribution and access of HIV treatment in malawi across different marginalized groups. i enjoy the work, but also love the concept. worked a 15 hour day, and still had so much left on my plate at the end.

thursday: maps, lots and lots of maps. i am working on a few mapping projects with the MoH and so spent the entire morning trying to get the mapping software and data in order. ugh, painful. but at the end, i have some pretty interesting and pretty pretty maps. catch up, catch up, catch up, always catch up. rushed from work to aerobics, aerobics to dinner (i ate standing up, i don't think that’s healthy), dinner to movie night at a friends. we watched brick. fun movie.

friday: met with my mentor, touched base on all of the projects on our horizon. i learn alot from him about CDC, Malawi, public health. helped train someone from the equity project on mapping, and then went to a planning meeting for a second HIV drug resistance surveillance project that i will be engaged in. then went to our dance class prep with jerome and shombi, this AMAZING malawian dancer, who made me feel super out of shape. i love these photos, the first is when all three of us our getting it, then i give up first, and then jerome gets lost. but shombi, he just keeps going. i think that he could dance all day. me, i last about 15 minutes with malawian traditional dance. i happily watched a movie at home alone, to make up for the crazy work week.

weekend: its a blur - breakfast with a friend, a few hours in the office, two sessions of v-ball (2x2 and 6x6), church, more work at home.... whew.

and back to today: left the house at 5:30 am to go out on HIV treatment clinic supervision visits. i am on a team with Tony Harries, head of the HIV Clinical Care Division in Malawi, and we will visit two clinics a day this week and comb through pages and pages of patient records. its a tedious task (see last monday), but essential for qaulity services in malawi. and i love picking Tony's brain, because he has been involved in this program from its inception.

long, great week. even after 5 months, its so new. that can be both good and bad, but right now, its good. cha bwino!