Work

I realize that a lot of people dont really know what "public health" is. Sometimes even I don't. So I am going to try to summarize it and then I am going to say what I do so that maybe people have a better idea. Public health is more or less trying to protect entire populations of people from getting sick. Doctors treat diseases. Public health professionals try to stop people from getting sick in the first place. So we run family planning clinics, conduct education campaigns about smoking, develop vaccines, and study the effects of pollution on cancer. Those are examples of "public health". There are a bunch of different things you can focus on, for example I have a friend who is studying health policy, another one studying infectious disease epidemiology, and I am studying reproductive health. So for me, I try to learn about what affect participation in a microcredit organization has on contraceptive use among poor women in Bangladesh, what barriers women in Afghanistan face to accessing safe birth delivery services, or whether women who escape sex trafficking in Thailand are able to integrate into society or face deportation and retrafficking. So those are public healthy things that we do. My work on them mostly involves sitting at a computer, crunching numbers and looking for patterns, but it also involves developing surveys, conducting interviews, or traveling to sites and actually seeing what the organizations we work with do (although that doesnt get to happen all that often sadly). So for those of you who were never really sure what in the world I was doing, and to clarify for myself a little bit, those are three things that I am working on right now.

Apparently people read this

I dont know that people I know read this but apparently people I dont know read it when they google me. Thats creepy. I guess if thats the case maybe i should spend more time writing on it. But since I havent written anything in almost a year, that seems unlikely. Anyway, I figured that I would just update the picture and the title. Since I am not in Africa and sadly will likely not be going back for some time. But I do have some trips in the works (SPAIN in one month and a half!!!) and possibly some other locations this summer. Potential dissertation opportunities are popping up, but its best not to get too excited. But here are some words to throw around... Nigeria, Burma, Thailand. Just putting it out there...

Third Quarter Over

I am now a week into the fourth quarter. Its kind of incredible how fast time has flown by. Having midterms and finals every couple weeks just keeps everything moving along. This term I am taking one fewer classes than last term in order to give myself a break. But since, as my friend puts it, I am a "class whore" its difficult to be limiting myself to only 5. Im weird. I admit it. But, my class schedule kept me on track last year and I managed to swing all A's (I honestly don't know how thats possible. Im thinking theres an error somewhere in there. But if I've learned anything by now, its don't question good grades).

In between studying and blizzards last term, I also managed to apply for some jobs. Which turned out quite well, since I will now be the official Global Health Fellow for HIV/Family Planning Integration programs at USAID for the summer. Im not sure that the job itself will be all that useful in terms of skills building, but I am very excited to work at USAID and see how one of the biggest funding agencies in the world works. It will be a great opportunity to get an inside look at a behemoth in the public health world. But sadly what that means is that I will be neither returning to the NW or traveling somewhere requiring an overnight flight. Im beginning to panic at the thought of being in the US for over a year with no travel! How can this be?!! But I figure its got to happen sometime. And there could be worse places than DC for the summer.

I will be back in Seattle in the summer at least once, since Brother and Sarah are getting married. It will be a short stopover given that I actually have a full time job (Im still kind of bewildered at the idea) but still at least I will see Seattle in the summer once more.

In the meantime, spring has officially sprung in Baltimore. Its sunny and warm (even hot. It was almost 80 today) and the people are out celebrating. Im at the harbor right now, sitting at a Barnes and Noble, watching the people stroll around the harbor at the Chesapeake Bay. Earlier today I went running with a friend through a wilderness area and yesterday went to a farmers market. So all in all, not a bad weekend. Minus the homework... which speaking of, I must return to. But I hope everyone is doing well out there in Internet world. Once I start working at USAID, I will update you all farther on Public Health in Action!

Some things I learned today

1. Seeing the sun has an immediate improvement on mood. Baltimore is kind of pretty when its not covered in 12 foot mountains of dirty snow.

2. In particular, the identity matrix serves as the unit of the ring of all n-by-n matrices, and as the identity element of the general linear group GL(n) consisting of all invertible n-by-n matrices. (The identity matrix itself is invertible, being its own inverse.)

I have no idea what that means but apparently I should. Thats going to be one of those things that I cross my fingers and hope doesnt show up on the exam. In the meantime, I will amuse myself with Poisson regressions and Cox proportional hazards. I might not really know what those are either, but at least I understand the words.

3. Some people have not read Cappyboppy by Bill Peet. That is a travesty. But this lady obviously did...
http://www.peoplepets.com/photos/strange/life-with-the-world-s-largest-rodent/1

4. And finally, when all else fails, pour yourself some wine, eat a chocolate chip cookie, and count the days until Spring Break. I believe the number is 10.

Update

At popular request, I am going to update a little bit on the goings on in my life.

As many of you know, I am back in the United States for a somewhat indefinite period of time. At the moment, I am a PhD student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Since PhDs are a little more amorphous than MDs and JDs there isnt necessarily a certain timeline that Im working under at the moment. So at least for the next year and a half to three and a half years, I will be a resident of Baltimore. Thats not so bad I suppose. Its no Africa, especially given the past month of what seems like near constant blizzards, but I do live next to a grocery store that sells salsa, hummus, chips, and fake chicken nuggets. So could things be worse? Yeah, definitely.

Right now I am mostly taking required classes and a lot of math. No one told me that getting a PhD in Public Health was basically getting a PhD in complex math, but it sure seems like it now. Thats a little known secret folks, so I am entrusting it to you. I am also working with my advisor on a series of papers for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. We are examining the database they have compiled but never used to look at the reproductive health of refugees. So far its pretty slow going. It seems like with the blizzards, most of our motivation has gone out the window.

And so with that, I want to leave a link to some blizzard photos.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032087&id=48101028&l=0d84dbf4a0

And I will try to update more often. I didnt realize that anyone really read this! So I will try to write a little bit about what its like being a graduate student and a resident of the other coast.

Zanzibar

I will be the first to admit that I live a pretty sweet life. I have had the chance to see and do things that most people dream about. This was reinforced ten times over when Marta and I went to Zanzibar last week. July 1 and 4 are holidays in Rwanda so Marta and I took the opportunity to take six days off at the price of two and headed off to an island adventure. Just a quick wikipedia update for all y'all... Zanzibar is an island archipelago off the coast of Tanzania (its the Zan in Tanzania) that used to be a major Arab trading port. So it has a strong Arab influence (98% of the island is Muslim) as well as a strong Indian influence from continued trade and of course continued Western influence from tourists, its main economy. So it has an amazing culture on top of perfect, and I do mean perfect beaches.

Marta and I flew in from Kilimanjaro and the first thing that we saw was water that rivaled the crayola "Turquoise" crayon. The water was so clear that you could make out the coral reefs beneath the water from the air. The airport is just south of Zanzibar City, the main city in Zanzibar, and as you fly in, you see thousands of tin roofs reflecting the heat and sun back up to the sky, like thousands of mirrors. When we landed, we were quickly ushered through the airport and into a waiting taxi that was literally from 1953. Our driver gave us an impromptu tour of the city (the Indian Embassy is the biggest and the Soviet block buildings built by the East Germans are still standing) and drove us into Stone Town, the oldest part of Zanzibar city and a World Historical Site.

It was in a word... stunning. Narrow alleys wind around tall weathered buildings that have been standing for hundreds of years. All the doors are wide, heavy wooden doors with ornate carvings and metal decorations, some rounded on the top, spiked, or flat depending on the era the building was erected and the cultural influences at the time.

We walked around Stone Town the first day, shopping and eating. After a year of brochettes and fries, it was a culinary explosion. Lobster, crab, octopus, shrimp, prawns, Italian, Indian, Japanese, Chinese... I have to stop. The best was probably the strip of street food vendors that set up shop as the sun was setting. Hundreds of people just walked up and down the line of street vendors eating Zanzibar Pizza, roasted crab, octopus skewers, or spiced tuna. We ate only briefly at the street food since we also wanted beer (what can I say... a year of Primus and Mutzig leaves one hungry for choices) and since Zanzibar is Muslim, alcohol is not allowed on the streets. After an meal which actually left me satisfied for the first time in a year, Marta and I went back to the hotel and crashed. Oh and side note, our room was cleverly separated from our bathroom by a shower curtain. Ingenious. And completely not-soundproof.

The second day, as much as we wanted to stay in Stone Town, we were also anxious for the beach. So after breakfast, we arranged a shuttle and took off for the Northwest beaches, specifically Kendwa beach about an hour north of Stone Town and a world away. At low tide, the beach stretches around the tip of the island for several kilometers with turqouise water on one side and jungle (and hotels) on the other. The sand is so soft that it felt like walking on flour and was almost white, with minute pieces of red (Marta and I still cant figure out where the red came from). There isnt too much to say about the next two days... We laid on the beach, drank beer, ate sea food, and made friends with the bartenders at the bar down the beach because they were nicer and cheaper and just generally had a completely lazy and indulgent time.

On the third morning, July 4, we went snorkeling. We went with a tour and ended up with a French Canadian couple, a Swedish couple, two friends from Norway, and a girl from England/ Australia. It took about three hours to reach the private island that we snorkeled off of (couldnt actually go on the island. That would have cost $300). So we all laid on the top level of the dhow (traditional fishing boat) and watched the island pass slowly by. When we got to the island everyone just jumped in and snorkeled around except for yours truly. I jumped in and pretty much swallowed a bunch of water, got water in my mask, and started thrashing around like a wounded seal (oh there are sharks in Zanzibar by the way). So finally I got it together, swam back to the boat, and practiced a little. Its not hard, but its unnatural and I apparently do not take naturally to swim sports. But after about ten minutes holding onto the boat and a new mask, i was good to go. I still swallowed a lot of water and i was afraid to dive under the water, but it was amazing nonetheless. We were swimming just feet above coral reefs with big violet and yellow fish, long thin silver fish, urchins, and star fish and at one point i looked up and i was swimming through a school of black and white striped fish. Every time I turned, they would turn and surround me again, swimming around and in front of me. After snorkeling, we went to a beach just across the channel from the island and had bbq fish, coconut rice, and fresh pineapple and oranges on the beach. It was a pretty idyllic day. Other than being spied on by a 13 year old boy when I was popping a squat. That wasnt as much fun.

After we got back, we reverted back to the previous pattern of beers and beach chairs until it got dark. We decided to walk down the beach a little to a place that had a band the night before and play some board games. In the middle of our second game, Kilimanjaro, a Masai warrior came and sat next to us and then started playing. Apparently he used to play all the time. All I can say is this... never get into a betting game against a Masai warrior playing Jenga.

After the jenga game, we made our way back to Kendwa rocks which was having its monthly full moon party, which draws people literally from around the island and from Dar. There was an acrobat squad and two djs and apparently a bbq buffet, which we were too late for (45 minutes after it opened, picked clean). Marta and I made friends with a middle aged south african couple that wanted us to stay with them for World Cup (the own a couple hotels) and were very intent on seeing us married so promised to fix us up with eligible footballers. Crap I just realized we left without getting their number. Stupid Linnea!

Unfortunately, we had to leave the next morning so we didnt stay too late at the full moon party. Late enough to regret it the next day but also early enough to make it through the day without hating life. You've been there. So the next day we left Kendwa and got a shuttle back into Zanzibar town. When we got the airport, the line was really long and completely stopped. We were waiting as they came along grabbing people out of line for flights that were literally leaving and rushing them through security (probably not the most secure airport in the world, now that I think about it). All of a sudden, a man came up to me asked me if I was on flight 712 to Dar (I was on 423 which left an hour later by the way) and grabbed my ticket. He started yelling at Marta (she was in the other line so we could cover our bases) to get over to where we were. Then he disappeared into a small office as we stood around completely confused and came out about ten minutes later with handwritten boarding passes for the new flight that looked like movie tickets and told us to hurry hurry, being quite annoyed that we were holding up the plane, and rushing us through security (no worries though we still had to pay the five dollar fee for intercountry travel). We ran out onto the tarmac and were hurried up the ramp by an impatient ground squad, chastised for being late (please keep in mind we were waiting for a different flight that was not scheduled to leave for another hour and a half) and then pushed into our seats. During this jostling, Marta dropped her passport in the plane, which was exactly the same color as the passport, so after we landed in Dar, Marta and I were literally on our hands and knees pawing the floor, looking for her passport. Which we found with very little help from the flight crew. One of them asked me "Why did you drop the passport in the middle when you were seated in the front?" Right... because we meant to do that.

So after that flight, we sat in the Dar es Salaam airport (it smells like bathroom FYI) and then were on our way to Kilimanjaro again. We spent the night in Moshi which seems like a pretty happening town at the base of Kili and the jump off point for people hiking the mountain. Unfortunately, we had neither the time nor money to do so, but at least I have seen it now! Finally, after spending the night in Moshi (there are no flights from Zanzibar to Rwanda on the same day using the airline we chose so we ended up with an overnight layover. It was cool though and Im glad we did) we were back on the flight to Rwanda and back at work by noon. Although I did have to shower because by then I hadnt showered for umm I think four days. I counted the ocean as a wash. My hair however did not.

The sacrifices I make...

I just wanted to relay the events of my weekend in case there were still people out there who thought that I am really sacrificing a lot by roughing it in Africa. On Saturday morning, I woke up early and went for a 7-8 mile run (not sure exactly). Rather than make me tired, it gave me all sorts of energy so I baked some zucchini bread, called some friends to come over, and then made pancakes, eggs, toast and coffee for a breakfast brunch. After that, we decided the only way to continue the day was to lay out by a pool all day. Which we did, while eating pizza and drinking beer. While there, we came up with the brilliant idea of going to a bar that has a big screen tv and convincing them to play a movie of our choice while we laid on the lawn and ate food. We went to bed pretty early because Sunday we decided we wanted to go hiking, so we went to Mount Kabuye, the mountain I climbed a few months ago, and hiked up to the top. After the five hour hike, we rolled back into town and then ate ourselves silly on Indian food.

All in all, it was a great, exhausting, relaxing, food-filled, over-active weekend. I expect more of the same in the run-up to coming home. I will let you know how that works out!