the adventure begins again

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The adventure begins again. This time in the form of a 5-year grant in South Africa, for which I am the project director on the U.S. side. So while I will not be living in Cape Town, I will be traveling back and forth every few months to oversee key parts of the study and train staff on protocol and procedures.

Project director…international travel…HIV prevention with one of the highest risk communities in the world. As Ken always says, I am living my dream. There’s this great sense of satisfaction in finally being able to have reached my goal of becoming an international HIV researcher. I may be a rookie, but I am finally in the role.

The project is to design an HIV prevention program for heterosexual couples that hang out together in “shebeens”, or local drinking establishments. This trip the goal is to get a better sense of the shebeens by hanging out in them and talking to patrons and owners, as well as to do a series of focus groups with South Africans from the communities we are working in outside of Cape Town (Khayelitsha, Mitchell’s Plain, and Delft) about drinking, drugging, violence, and risky sex behavior within couples.

So again, I’m going to be hanging out in make-shift bars and interviewing people about their sex lives.

But what will make this trip interesting is that the Cape Town police have started fining and arresting owners of unlicensed shebeens (which is most of them). And in response, the people in some of the communities have started protesting and threatening to dig holes in the roads to keep the police from driving through.

Again, I manage to go where the action is. Do I pursue craziness or does it follow me?

My first few months at RTI have been a steep learning curve. I went from being a graduate student who took orders from professors to overseeing staff and setting agendas and organizing an entire multi-million dollar project. But so far I love it. I thought this job was perfect for me, and so far I have not been disappointed.

My other big project the past few weeks has been to write my first grant proposal as an RTI researcher. The funding is from the Department of State to do anti-trafficking program improvement and development in Nepal. So I (with the help of several very smart people) wrote a proposal that involves bringing together NGOs and law enforcement to create what we called an “advocacy response plan” to intercept trafficking incidents on the Nepal/India border and get support services to the women and girls who are being trafficked.

How fucking cool is that? Of course, funding from the State Department is extremely competitive, so I’m not holding my breath. But if awarded, I will be doing some amazing, hands-on, actually saving the world type of work. Not to mention I would be a celebrity at RTI for breaking open the door to the State Department. They have tried several times to get funding from them with no luck. And I got to figure out the entire budget, so it would mean 3 trips a year to Nepal (just for 3 weeks at a time) and a very nice salary and steady work for 3 years for Deepti, my research assistant in Kathmandu.

Anyway, the next chapter in the story of my travels begins the same as the last—on a plane ride that seems to go on forever. I’m about 4.5 hours into a 16-hour flight to Cape Town that will make a stop in Dakar, Senegal. I’ll pick up my luggage (that holds 1000 condoms, among other supplies), and will hop in a taxi to what will be my new focus for the next several years. In the meantime, I cannot sleep, I keep having to use the bathroom because I’m drinking water like crazy from being dehydrated, and the guy across the aisle keeps snoring. Ah, the joys of international travel!

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Comments

[Jan]

Another adventure - I can't wait!
Hi Michelle, I was thrilled to see another travel blog from you in my inbox. I enjoyed living vicariously through you on your Kathmandu adventure and really missed the updates when you got back to the States. Will look forward to your journeying to South Africa with you now - have never been there and probably wouldn't be game to go to the areas that you'll be visiting.....so once again, can't wait to hear all your stories. Regards, Jan