Sorry! And here's an update

It has been brought to my attention that I am terrible at keeping up with the blog. In my defense, the days have been pretty packed and making it to the internet is sometimes more of a hassle than anything else. But, today marks a new day! And from here on out, I will try to be better at it.

And, because I have a tendency to write a novel when I want to describe anything, I will try to spare some of the details. I also really think adding pictures is a nice touch, too. I have decide to make a "Things on Two Wheels" tribute to acknowledge all of the creative things that can be carried on a bicycle, motorcycle, etc. I will start off with one of my favorite pictures...

It's the Milk Mobile!! The milk men are always the sweetest looking, just home grown men of Uganda. Just flag one down for a cup of freshly squeezed milk. Very cute.

So, back to catching you up to speed...boy, there's a lot...

We finished collecting data for one research project, had a vacation (or three really :)), and already began working on the next phase of data collection. We had a change of supervisors and along with that a completely different mode of operation.

Our first project flew by. The first week we spent coming up with a survey and getting all of our ducks in a row, and the following three weeks were spent at various health centers in villages asking mothers our survey. We wanted to know about their health seeking behaviors; what illnesses they go to traditional healer for; to modern health practitioners for; what they treat themselves. And from those questions spawned a waterfall of information. But there were quite a bit of challenges. A lot of people weren't honest, many things were being mis-translated, and people had misinterpreted our intentions and formed their answers to what they thought we wanted to hear. But looking past all the 'fake' interviews, I had a few really good ones to that made every bit worth it. We got to revisit the best interviewees and this was my fav:




She is an herbalist that has herbs that can cure measles, anemia, malaria, diarrhea, ekibare (pancreatitis/enlarged spleen, we're not sure on the correct organ), malnutrition, and can help women have a speedy delivery. She is also a traditional birth attendant (an unofficial midwife), and just a cool lady.


And here is Kara, hard at work visiting one of her key interviewees. However, the lady in the picture isn't the key informant. It is a crazy lady that just walked in while we were there! The one we were interviewing was really sweet to the wanderer and allowed her to stay for a bit.




















And I think a perfect ending to this overdue message is...an envelope on a bike. Symbolic of the care it takes to deliver (and in my case, post) a letter (or blog).

Hope all is well!