My study’s like a rollercoaster

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We started work on Monday, it freakin sucked. I didn’t really want to go. It was raining. It was muddy. We sat around in the clinic pretty much all day. The woman we have as our data collector also works at the clinic and we got maybe 10 surveys on Monday, the busiest day. He she didn’t have time to get all the surveys done and do her job. Most of the women are illiterate so we need someone to read them the survey and mark their responses. The survey is translated from English into both Amharic, the national language, and Oromifan, the local language. We walked back home. In the mud. It sucked. We are working in the immunization clinic and aren’t getting enough mother-child pairs, or at least enough mother-child pairs where the kid is older than 6 months. Deflated. This blows, we’ll never hit our target of 377. We decided that we would need another data collector and would work in the immunization clinic and the out-patient department. I called our preceptor to start a search and I remembered I met one man, Zelalem, who was very nice, smart and involved with his church and I figured he might know someone so I gave him a call as well.

Our preceptor found a graduate student who would work for 70 birr per day, which is what we are paying our current data collector, only she would only work half day. I met with Zelalem and he asked to see the survey and looked it over making sure nothing was too private. He said he might know someone. We met the guy he had in mind, his son, who happens to be studying medicine at the University. He is on break for about 3 more weeks, which is the length of our study. We asked how much he wanted, he said make me an offer, we said how about 70 birr, it is what we are paying the other collector. He replied that was very fair and he would start work tomorrow on Wednesday.

Monday is always the busy day at the clinic, we got 10 respondents. Tuesday we got about 6 or so. Wednesday was surprisingly busy. By the end of the day we had over 50 total respondents. I was freakin stoked. We are actually getting data! We might actually get over the 377 needed!

Thursday was a little slower and most of the women have either just given birth, are breastfeeding, or their children are sick, one of the problems working at a hospital and out-patient clinic. So we have gone from being defeated, to being on cloud nine, to being semi-deflated. We’ll see what happens. At worst we’ll have some data. We are at 82 patients now on Friday morning, including 10 that we got today from just under an hour and a half of work. I’m hoping we can get to 100 today. With 3 more weeks and 2 people working we should be able to get our 377. Though we will be missing a Thursday and Friday next week to visit the Americans and their NGO in Chiri. I still think we should make 377.

Working at the clinic is ok. The benches are uncomfortable, but the kids are really cute. I don’t even mind their crying. There are also occasionally monkeys on the premises! The other day I saw a grey monkey with a baby hanging from its belly. Yesterday we saw a whole platoon of black and white monkeys chilling in a tree. I think the locals are entertained by our amusement at seeing monkeys. We don’t have monkeys in America! I haven’t looked that hard in the trees surrounding the Kaiser Permanente in Vallejo, but I am pretty sure there’s no monkeys in those trees.

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