Michelle K

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

As predicted, I picked up a little intestinal bacteria. Every time I was served food on a dish that was not completely dried, or had water from the shower splash in my mouth, or watched the kitchen staff prepare my food when I know toilet paper is hard to come by, I was wondering if this would be the incident to do me in. The stomach cramps were pretty bad, and of course there was diarrhea and complete loss of appetite. I laid in bed for the afternoon on Monday, and that evening one of my students came over to take care of me once he heard that I was down and out. Totally unnecessary, but incredibly sweet. He fed me chicken soup and plain spaghetti and made oral rehydration solution. While he did that, Tesfaye ... 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

The second half of my trip was much more what I was expecting from Bali. Wednesday morning the dive bus picked me up at my hotel and we drove 2.5 hours up the coast to Tulamben. We parked at a beautiful resort on the rocky shore, and the water was pure blue with a pristine infinity pool meeting it. We geared up and made the trek over the rocky beach carrying our tanks on our backs. Once you finally fell into the water, the trick was getting your flippers on. Tulamben is the site of the US Liberty, a ship that was bombed by the Japanese during WW2. It’s just off the coast, so probably the easiest ship wreck to dive because you do not have to go very deep. The coral is beautiful and the ... read more

I made it to Bali. It’s not quite what I was expecting, except for the heat and humidity. I guess I had this image of it being similar to Fiji because it’s a honeymoon destination—very romantic, very tropical, very remote. But in reality, it’s quite over developed. I’m in the town of Sanur, which is where the first Westerners settled over 100 years ago (aside from the colonists). I’m staying at a place called Sativa Cottages off a little side street. It’s nice enough, but a bit outdated with its yellowed sheets and dishes and worn furniture. The food in the restaurant sucks. But I have AC, hot water, and electricity, which is more than I can say for a lot of the places I’ve been. There is a nice beach in front of the sprawling ... read more

I left Bogor on Saturday since our work there is finished and the left for Palembang in South Sumatra yesterday. The work in Bogor ended kind of strangely. Friday afternoon 2 of the fieldworkers were meeting some anti-tobacco advocates at an office at the train station for an interview. Shortly after I got there, I got a call that the media was there and wanted photos of me. Great. So the driver picked me up and brought me to the station. We were ushered into a room marked VIP, and as soon as I stepped in I saw about a dozen men and one woman, all of them with cameras. People were shaking my hand and speaking to me in Bahasa, but I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. One of fieldworkers translated for me. ... read more

I am very pleased with my research team. They are super organized and are getting through all necessary interviews quicker than expected (which means I get to go back to my oasis in Jakarta a day early). I also don’t feel like I have to hover over them to make sure everything goes according to protocol. The research capacity here in Indonesia is quite high. But as in other countries, data collection is often an uncomfortable process. My research manager called yesterday evening to say he was going straight home rather than meeting me for a debrief meeting because he just spent the last couple of hours doing an interview while sitting next to a chicken coop and was not smelling so nice. Yesterday morning I sat in on a focus group with women from a ... read more