Blogs from Jimma, Oromia Region, Ethiopia, Africa

My last days in Ethiopia were unforgettable, and I’m not exaggerating. We wrapped up the course with student presentations of their final qualitative projects. They were well done overall and very creative—one group is interviewing street youth, another asking people why they prefer injections over oral meds, another asking health workers about media campaigns concerning female genital mutilation. It made me proud to watch my students talk confidently about qualitative methods and analysis and to critique each other. Thursday evening I was ushered to the faculty lounge, where they had created a “program” for me, which was really a going away party. My co-instructor and the department head gave speeches, a couple of students gave their thoughts on the course and the collaboration with CDC and JHU, and I got up and thanked all of them ... read more

It definitely takes a couple of weeks of spending time in a new place before you start to recognize patterns in people’s behaviors and interactions. For instance, just yesterday I realized that the reason why people say “Fine!” to me is because they are asking, “Are you fine?” And now that I have been here long enough and people are comfortable with me, all sorts of conversations are starting to open up. Yesterday one of my students told me I look older because I wear long skirts and walk slowly. It was only when I put on slacks and trail shoes that he said I look my age. (Thanks for the advice!) I had to explain to him that the clothes I wear in Africa are actually a bit different from my American dress, as a ... read more

I am sitting in a hotel room I share with many cockroaches in a tiny hotel in a tiny town of 150,000 called Jimma in Ethiopia. I am here to teach a 3-week course on Qualitative Research Methods at Jimma University’s Department of Public Health. The university is one of the most prestigious and well known in Africa, but it is very resource poor. A colleague and I are being sponsored by the CDC to be here as part of a capacity building initiative linked to another project on HIV prevention. He and I are each teaching a course to a combination of university instructors and master’s students to build their research capacity. I arrived in Addis Ababa on Friday night and spent the weekend at the Hilton because flights to Jimma only run every 2 ... read more

I leave Jimma tomorrow morning; ending one journey and starting another. It’s not really sad, though I will miss some of the girls that work at the internet café. We tried to tie all the loose ends we could. I took some more pictures; we went to the park and took a horse carriage taxi. Still trying to finish some stuff to do with the study, Ned might be able to help us finish some administrative type stuff. We haven’t seen Joseph in a week, but we left him a letter earlier today. Maybe he will come by. Tomorrow we will be in Addis, eating real food at Serenade. I can’t wait. Hopefully I will be able to ship my souvenirs home from the post in Addis. I might not be able to add to the ... read more

Well, we are finally finished our survey. We needed 377 respondents to have a decent survey and we got a total of 438. Sweet. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without our 2nd data collector, the son of the guy I just happened to meet at the internet café. He was awesome. All of the data is entered; there are almost 100 variables for every 1 participant, though not all participants have all variables. We actually have statistically significant results, on a subject that appears to still be inconclusive to researchers. Perhaps because of this we will be able to publish our results. I am excited. ... read more