The briefest of updates:
1. spent all summer in tanzania, more or less.
2. Josh did not get eaten by hippos or chimps.
3. No one was mowed down by elephants.
4. We spotted the elusive rock hyrax!
5. Was a work machine in between vacationing. Do not recommend. Please to do all vacationing after all the work is done.
6. Chumbe Island was all that it was cracked up to be.
7. Returned to Baltimore with happy dog, now packing up house with help of in-laws to move on Wednesday to Philadelphia.
8. Attempting to purge as much stuff as possible. Including hockey gear.
9. PhD is still a question mark.
10. Need more ideas for freezer foods that aren't lasagna, for friends with brand-new baby.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Opportunity Knocks
After one week in Tanzania I flew up to Barcelona for a project meeting. I know. I know.
Tough life, right?
Checking in online and upgrading for 93 euro got me a row of three seats to myself which I immediately claimed as soon as the stewardesses began to shut the overhead compartments. I read a chapter or two of The Tiger's Wife on my birthday Kindle and as soon as we leveled off I zonked out for the remainder of the flight. In the morning, my face puffy and my hair floating in the dryness, the flight attendant peered at me, then asked me if I didn't want something to drink. "You slept well, no?"
And a good thing too since upon arrival I met the rest of our small operations research committee and drove us up into the hills near Girona. I think I drove slowly, careful like a drunk, feeling the weight of ferrying not only our USAID 'boss' but also one of the world's great malaria professors, a colleague I have known for several years but have only recently begun to impress. He's also the reason why I'm in Tanzania on this assignment.
Heading into the heart of Catalunya the fields are green with short crops and stubby stone buildings poke out behind trees and shrubs. Small cars zip around curves in the road, veering to one side as another approaches. Clouds fringed the tops of hills and further away, the mountains.
Two hours later we arrived in a small town with a tiny textile factory that produces some kind of cord to be used in other textile manufacturing. There is a primary school. A church from the 11th century that requires a very large key. Just down a narrow road from the church we find the Malaria Consortium Catalunya Office, which Albert has rehabbed over the course of many years from animal barn into a three story retreat. The houses here each have large garages on the first floor, you know, for their horses and carts, originally. Stairs go up the middle to the second floor with two bedrooms on one side and the fireplace, bathroom and kitchen on the other. At the back, a closed in porch the width of the whole house with a new petit balcony and just a few windows. The walls are two feet thick and white washed.
The third floor has Albert's master bedroom on one side and his office on the other. Everything is tiled by hand; shelves are somewhat rough hewn; towel bars are bamboo mitred into the corners. Coffee sacks line the ceiling of the front porch and are stained in places from a leak that he can't find. Curtains and wall hangings are printed cloth from Uganda and other travels. The breeze comes through the whole house, front to back, and from the porch you see a kumquat tree and the neighbor's abandoned fig tree reaching over the wall, in an effort to make itself useful.
Everyone else in the village is square and short and we are noticed, conspicuous in our number (6) and our technical fleeces.
The meeting centers on the operational research agenda for our project and we duly discuss, in a rambling manner, all of our potential studies and our focus for the coming three years. I am utterly charmed by the scenery and the breeze and the mountains in the distance and the quiet. The economies of small towns escape me, but 800 voting adults is enough to sustain a butcher, a baker, two hairdressers, a tabac, and a few repairmen. The doctor is in town three days a week. We wait to pass through the narrow road to the church one evening as a man unloads bag after bag of groceries from his car, handing them to an unseen companion standing in the doorway of their home. He waves to us and hurries back into the drivers seat to clear the way.
On our way to Friday's dinner at a small hotel-restaurant in the hills further up, we pass an epic stone bridge built the same town as the town's church, spanning a deep gully where the locals go swimming in the heat of summer. One can jump from the rocks into the deep water, about 10 meters, but the bridge is likely 30 or 40 meters up, and no one has jumped from it for swimming purposes. Outside the restaurant the smells are quiet, green, and small - it has been raining, and the dirt parking lot is damp under our feet, and the olive trees are pleased to soak up the early season moisture. The air is clean.
It is too early for vacationers and we are the only people in the restaurant; we order salads and charcuterie, which comes with blood sausage in both negra and blanca variaties. The river trout is fresh, pink and as far as I can tell, deep fried with a massive dose of homemade aioli. Pa amb tomaque starts us off and Albert shows us how to slice the garlic in half, rub it on the huge slices of toasted local bread, then take half a golf-ball-sized ripe tomato and rub its inner contents on the bread till it turns just pink. A few drops of olive oil and some salt and all is right with the world.
In the car in the morning as we drive from our hotel to Albert's, The Gentleman Prof gently confirms that I do not, in fact, have a PhD. And proceeds to tell me how at his institution in Basel it is possible to get these three letters by working at my regular job for the next three years and producing three papers, then taking a few classes and defending the oral exam. "It would be a win-win situation; we could get a great dissertation out of you and you would get the degree." Unlike nearly all other public health training programs Basel focuses on public health practice and does not expect its students to remain in the ivory tower writing NIH grants or running clinical trials that will lead to the next greatest molecule. I am somewhat astounded with his confidence and with the fee structure, which works out to something like 400 bucks a year. At some point I would need to teach; however, the program is structured in such a way as to give credit for areas of strength and interest, rather than shoving one into a small box based on the advisor's interests. The in-person work could be completed in one semester.
And so, yet again, by virtue of hard work and good luck, I find myself with an opportunity, something I can make happen and that others want to make happen. A win-win. An opportunity that fits into the current short-term life plan and would no doubt lead to further opportunities. There are two international schools in Basel and Josh has a British passport. My head, already filled with thinking from the Tanzania assignment, now has some new options and implications to grind over and over into the fine powder of a decision.
Tough life, right?
Checking in online and upgrading for 93 euro got me a row of three seats to myself which I immediately claimed as soon as the stewardesses began to shut the overhead compartments. I read a chapter or two of The Tiger's Wife on my birthday Kindle and as soon as we leveled off I zonked out for the remainder of the flight. In the morning, my face puffy and my hair floating in the dryness, the flight attendant peered at me, then asked me if I didn't want something to drink. "You slept well, no?"
And a good thing too since upon arrival I met the rest of our small operations research committee and drove us up into the hills near Girona. I think I drove slowly, careful like a drunk, feeling the weight of ferrying not only our USAID 'boss' but also one of the world's great malaria professors, a colleague I have known for several years but have only recently begun to impress. He's also the reason why I'm in Tanzania on this assignment.
Heading into the heart of Catalunya the fields are green with short crops and stubby stone buildings poke out behind trees and shrubs. Small cars zip around curves in the road, veering to one side as another approaches. Clouds fringed the tops of hills and further away, the mountains.
Two hours later we arrived in a small town with a tiny textile factory that produces some kind of cord to be used in other textile manufacturing. There is a primary school. A church from the 11th century that requires a very large key. Just down a narrow road from the church we find the Malaria Consortium Catalunya Office, which Albert has rehabbed over the course of many years from animal barn into a three story retreat. The houses here each have large garages on the first floor, you know, for their horses and carts, originally. Stairs go up the middle to the second floor with two bedrooms on one side and the fireplace, bathroom and kitchen on the other. At the back, a closed in porch the width of the whole house with a new petit balcony and just a few windows. The walls are two feet thick and white washed.
The third floor has Albert's master bedroom on one side and his office on the other. Everything is tiled by hand; shelves are somewhat rough hewn; towel bars are bamboo mitred into the corners. Coffee sacks line the ceiling of the front porch and are stained in places from a leak that he can't find. Curtains and wall hangings are printed cloth from Uganda and other travels. The breeze comes through the whole house, front to back, and from the porch you see a kumquat tree and the neighbor's abandoned fig tree reaching over the wall, in an effort to make itself useful.
Everyone else in the village is square and short and we are noticed, conspicuous in our number (6) and our technical fleeces.
The meeting centers on the operational research agenda for our project and we duly discuss, in a rambling manner, all of our potential studies and our focus for the coming three years. I am utterly charmed by the scenery and the breeze and the mountains in the distance and the quiet. The economies of small towns escape me, but 800 voting adults is enough to sustain a butcher, a baker, two hairdressers, a tabac, and a few repairmen. The doctor is in town three days a week. We wait to pass through the narrow road to the church one evening as a man unloads bag after bag of groceries from his car, handing them to an unseen companion standing in the doorway of their home. He waves to us and hurries back into the drivers seat to clear the way.
On our way to Friday's dinner at a small hotel-restaurant in the hills further up, we pass an epic stone bridge built the same town as the town's church, spanning a deep gully where the locals go swimming in the heat of summer. One can jump from the rocks into the deep water, about 10 meters, but the bridge is likely 30 or 40 meters up, and no one has jumped from it for swimming purposes. Outside the restaurant the smells are quiet, green, and small - it has been raining, and the dirt parking lot is damp under our feet, and the olive trees are pleased to soak up the early season moisture. The air is clean.
It is too early for vacationers and we are the only people in the restaurant; we order salads and charcuterie, which comes with blood sausage in both negra and blanca variaties. The river trout is fresh, pink and as far as I can tell, deep fried with a massive dose of homemade aioli. Pa amb tomaque starts us off and Albert shows us how to slice the garlic in half, rub it on the huge slices of toasted local bread, then take half a golf-ball-sized ripe tomato and rub its inner contents on the bread till it turns just pink. A few drops of olive oil and some salt and all is right with the world.
In the car in the morning as we drive from our hotel to Albert's, The Gentleman Prof gently confirms that I do not, in fact, have a PhD. And proceeds to tell me how at his institution in Basel it is possible to get these three letters by working at my regular job for the next three years and producing three papers, then taking a few classes and defending the oral exam. "It would be a win-win situation; we could get a great dissertation out of you and you would get the degree." Unlike nearly all other public health training programs Basel focuses on public health practice and does not expect its students to remain in the ivory tower writing NIH grants or running clinical trials that will lead to the next greatest molecule. I am somewhat astounded with his confidence and with the fee structure, which works out to something like 400 bucks a year. At some point I would need to teach; however, the program is structured in such a way as to give credit for areas of strength and interest, rather than shoving one into a small box based on the advisor's interests. The in-person work could be completed in one semester.
And so, yet again, by virtue of hard work and good luck, I find myself with an opportunity, something I can make happen and that others want to make happen. A win-win. An opportunity that fits into the current short-term life plan and would no doubt lead to further opportunities. There are two international schools in Basel and Josh has a British passport. My head, already filled with thinking from the Tanzania assignment, now has some new options and implications to grind over and over into the fine powder of a decision.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Weekend Update
A truly enjoyable 25 mile bike ride with Sean, a tour of Baltimore's private schools including one very large, long hill that me and my lowest gear did not see eye to eye on;
ensuing sunburn;
a new best-ever porkchop from SuperFresh, via Sean and Marin's grill (with perfect grillmarks, natch);
A trip to said SuperFresh, whereupon I left my iPhone in the shopping basket and drove all the way home;
But the kind grocerypeople turned it in and sent my friends a message on Facebook to let me know they had it;
pretty awesome;
Drinks and lunch and catching up with good friends;
thanks to cost-savings somewhere else, negotiating a business class ticket for me and my colleague on this next trip to Tanzania, which should make a good first impression on him;
determining that extra days in Uganda in August can certainly be well spent;
and the mundane: pancakes and NYT and getting Kima's nails trimmed and lamb chops and laundry;
and finding tenants to take over our lease in September! Check plus!
T minus 3 days till J's final draft of Paratexts R' Us goes to the committee!
ensuing sunburn;
a new best-ever porkchop from SuperFresh, via Sean and Marin's grill (with perfect grillmarks, natch);
A trip to said SuperFresh, whereupon I left my iPhone in the shopping basket and drove all the way home;
But the kind grocerypeople turned it in and sent my friends a message on Facebook to let me know they had it;
pretty awesome;
Drinks and lunch and catching up with good friends;
thanks to cost-savings somewhere else, negotiating a business class ticket for me and my colleague on this next trip to Tanzania, which should make a good first impression on him;
determining that extra days in Uganda in August can certainly be well spent;
and the mundane: pancakes and NYT and getting Kima's nails trimmed and lamb chops and laundry;
and finding tenants to take over our lease in September! Check plus!
T minus 3 days till J's final draft of Paratexts R' Us goes to the committee!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Instant Fish
Josh is in the last 9 days of finishing the dissertation, so I'm in charge of dinner this week. Last night I came home, went running (let's hear it for Lady Gaga, by the way, who makes this possible), and literally whipped up dinner. Two barramundi filets were thawed; leek confit was reheated, as was some indian spinach that Josh had made a few days earlier. I threw some pecans in the Cuisinart and added salt, slapped that onto the fish for a nice nutty crust, and pan fried (sauteed? what's the difference?) the fish until dark brown and cooked through (longer than I had expected). Slap those puppies down on a bed of leeks with spinach on the side and some barely toasted frozen homemade sourdough bread and you have yourself a pretty nice meal! The pecans gave a nice crunch and the leeks (and their butter) were a perfect mouthful with the white fish.
Fish is my favorite fast food.
Fish is my favorite fast food.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Flattery will get you everywhere
So I just finished up this fantastic three week process evaluation of Mali's first universal coverage distribution, in the region of Sikasso. I got to work with a couple ladies from MEDA, Ricki and Ariane, and we blasted all around Sikasso documenting strengths and weaknesses of the distribution, which was planned by PSI and the PNLP and carried out by all the dedicated district medical officers and health facility doctors and volunteers, who went house to house to register each family in every village and neighborhood. I wrote up a 36 page draft report in French with inputs from my team members and revised the microplan that had been developed for the next region, Segou - it had some major formula errors! Using what we learned from the campaign in Sikasso, I also revised the training manuals for the volunteers, both for the registration process (which is complicated in the urban area, since people figure out they can lie about how many people live in their house to get additional nets) and for the distribution process (which mostly went fine, except for the reporting timeliness and some stockouts of nets).
So I get back home and easing back in to all the other work stuff that's going on, and then get an email from another guy at MEDA, the boss of Ricki and Ariane. "Are you interested in spending four weeks in Tanzania to evaluate options and make recommendations for delivering nets through a combination of channels, so that universal coverage can stay high even after they finish their universal coverage campaign? We think you would be great."
Let me explain a little bit. The country of Tanzania will be writing a huge proposal to the Global Fund starting August 15th, to fund (for the next 5 years) a comprehensive malaria control program that includes a comprehensive net delivery strategy, made up of probably multiple channels so that nets can get out to the people who need new ones. We've all theorized about how this might look in a hypothetical country. But I get to spend four weeks actually figuring this out for Tanzania. Then they put it in their Global Fund application and hopefully a year later they'll get the money and be able to implement the plan.
Well hells yeah I'm interested! This is a) the biggest challenge facing net distribution at the moment b) a country that has made tremendous progress and used innovative channels already c) a country I know pretty well, at least in terms of the major organisations and people and recent net-related history d) they think I would be great!
I am so so so susceptible to praise of this nature. To be honest, I had seen this consultancy before and had recommended someone else for it, not even thinking it might be within my expertise (but that was before Mali). This is what we're talking about when we talk about professional opportunities - you get an opportunity, you do a good job, and all of a sudden people are putting you up even bigger and more important jobs. It's the kind of luck you make. And it comes right at the moment where I am confident that I can actually do a good job - no more faking till I make it. I know what I'm doing now.
The downside, of course, is that this means I will be gone for another four weeks, missing both our anniversary and Josh's PhD defense. Not cool. But - I'm around for the next couple weeks during which Josh will finish his draft, and I can cook him dinner each night so that he can write and revise; and later in July we'll both be back in Tanzania to really celebrate our anniversary, with proper vacation and adventure travel. And perhaps I can skype in to the defense...
Sooo excited. Hooray!
So I get back home and easing back in to all the other work stuff that's going on, and then get an email from another guy at MEDA, the boss of Ricki and Ariane. "Are you interested in spending four weeks in Tanzania to evaluate options and make recommendations for delivering nets through a combination of channels, so that universal coverage can stay high even after they finish their universal coverage campaign? We think you would be great."
Let me explain a little bit. The country of Tanzania will be writing a huge proposal to the Global Fund starting August 15th, to fund (for the next 5 years) a comprehensive malaria control program that includes a comprehensive net delivery strategy, made up of probably multiple channels so that nets can get out to the people who need new ones. We've all theorized about how this might look in a hypothetical country. But I get to spend four weeks actually figuring this out for Tanzania. Then they put it in their Global Fund application and hopefully a year later they'll get the money and be able to implement the plan.
Well hells yeah I'm interested! This is a) the biggest challenge facing net distribution at the moment b) a country that has made tremendous progress and used innovative channels already c) a country I know pretty well, at least in terms of the major organisations and people and recent net-related history d) they think I would be great!
I am so so so susceptible to praise of this nature. To be honest, I had seen this consultancy before and had recommended someone else for it, not even thinking it might be within my expertise (but that was before Mali). This is what we're talking about when we talk about professional opportunities - you get an opportunity, you do a good job, and all of a sudden people are putting you up even bigger and more important jobs. It's the kind of luck you make. And it comes right at the moment where I am confident that I can actually do a good job - no more faking till I make it. I know what I'm doing now.
The downside, of course, is that this means I will be gone for another four weeks, missing both our anniversary and Josh's PhD defense. Not cool. But - I'm around for the next couple weeks during which Josh will finish his draft, and I can cook him dinner each night so that he can write and revise; and later in July we'll both be back in Tanzania to really celebrate our anniversary, with proper vacation and adventure travel. And perhaps I can skype in to the defense...
Sooo excited. Hooray!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Moo
We're pretty sure Kima's all Dalmatian, but with her constant grass-grazing in the backyard, it may be time to ask: do we share our home with a barking, shedding, squirrel-chasing Holstein?
Saturday, April 23, 2011
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