Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Flu, Banana Bread, UNCST prep

We are also working on getting the pictures up from this week, so be on the look out.

6/8/11
Meagan is feeling way better, which is good because I’m hitting the three week mark where I’m needing some space. I went to Mulago hospital after talking to Dr. Bagenda and Dr. Muhumuza who both suggested that we should go down to my favorite place, UNCST (Uganda National Council for Science and Technology) to check on the status of our IRB approval (imagine a grimace on mine and Meagan’s face). The UNCST is the equivalent of going to the Mississippi DMV. It’s horrible, and I have to mentally prepare at least two days in advance before I go so that I exercise enough patience while I’m there. I’ll let you know how it goes (or doesn’t go most likely) on Friday.

So I went to the hospital to print things in prep for going to the UNCST, make copies, and hang out at the coffee shop. In one short sentence that sounds kind of weird to want to hang out at the hospital, but Mulago is a complex of buildings used for clinical practice, research, and teaching. One of the facilities does research primarily on HIV and mother to child transmission, which accounts for roughly 10% of the new cases in Uganda each year. This is such a sad statistic because it is largely preventable, but issues like poverty and access to medication are large contributors. They are large contributors to the HIV epidemic in general. Anyway, what I love about this research facility in general is that they recognize the social factors that contribute to HIV and have allowed women with whom they conduct research to open a coffee shop and a souvenir shop. All the profits go to those women, so I like to be a conscious consumer and spend my money there.

6/7/11
Lot’s of commotion today. Grace’s “house girl” (housekeeper) “ran away” (she quit and left without telling anyone), so Grace brought her 18 month old to the house. She was full of energy the whole day. Moses came over to help us with the tests. We made a significant dent today. I think we only have like 300 more to grade and then we have to enter them into the database. Meagan was still sick, which makes me nervous because we have been sharing the big bed, so I called a friend to take her to the doctor.Luckily, we can see the doctor for free, and we happened across Dr. Grace when we got to the SAS clinic. She wrote Meagan a prescription, I also got a refill for anti-malarials, and we were on our way in no time. Hopefully it will help.

For good news, the banana bread pan has been located. It got moved to the other house that the Muhumuza’s use when they come to Uganda. I’m not sure why it got moved, but it’s good to know that it’s around somewhere. I don’t know that we could find another one.

6/6/11
Meagan has caught a cold, so she stayed home in bed today. We picked her up some medicine and then headed out in the city. Nicole went to one of the schools by herself today, which was a success. I think she is starting to get the hand of it. I went to another school where they are trying to start the program for a teachers meeting. I got to see the children’s books that SAS is developing, which was one of our suggestions from the previous summer. It’s always good to know that our ideas are turning out to be useful.

We dropped by 1000 Cups afterward and saw Joan. Her birthday is coming up, so we decided to have her and her kids over on her Birthday. I wonder what we’ll make for them? Last year, we made cheese burgers for our friends which was a big hit, but we’ll have to cook something for the kids that they’ll like.

I made spaghetti and tomato sauce for everyone tonight. It went over well. I’m getting really good at manipulating the stove, which can be pretty tricky since only one pot has handles, and it’s a gas stove, but there’s no pilot lights. It doesn’t want to stay on all the time, and sometimes the grates slide off.

Also our banana bread pan is missing! We can’t find it, although I can’t imagine that someone would want to take it since it is such an oddly shaped pan and very few people have ovens. I’m sure it got put somewhere.

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