1st Day in the Field/Yoga!

Work has cranked up this week as we develop new survey questions and go into the field to pre-test them. Today is quite the headache as we try to correct the miscodings in our baseline survey--it seems that the parishes and sub-counties (location identifiers, VERY important) were all entered incorrectly. Not so fun.

Yesterday, we took our new health knowledge and 6001 questions out into the poorer areas of Kampala to test them. I knew that I was living in the more posh area of the city, but I don't think I was quite prepared to see poverty that I did. The worst part is that I know there are so many people even worse off in different parts of the city and country. Many of the people live in tiny shacks that look like they can't last more than a season or two of Kampala's heavy rainstorms, and of the people wearing shoes, they were full of holes and the soles were falling off. It is very sad to see such poor living conditions and I am hoping to find a way to get involved or volunteer in some way during the little free time I have.

On a brighter note, I went to my first yoga class in Uganda last night in Munyonyo, a far away but beautiful area of the city right on Lake Victoria. It is a class run by two guys, Kevin and Gavin, who live in this UNREAL house right on the lake with a patio/hut area in their backyard for yoga. It was very well-done, not intense, but a nice stretch and very relaxing. They both trained in South Africa, and told me that there is a Kripalu teacher in Uganda they are going to put me in touch with! Speaking of Kripalu teachers in Uganda, one of my friends, Jon, that I did teacher training with, is doing his Bahai service in Jinja, and I am planning to meet up with him in an upcoming weekend to get my official Kampala Bahai temple tour. It's quite the coincidence that we are both in Uganda at the same time--before he was in Uganda, he was in Akko, Israel, another country I happened to visit when he was there.

Anyway, it's back to work for me!

Sunburns, Sweet Potatoes, and Salad

I spent most of the weekend with Hannah, my high school friend, before she headed back to the States early this morning. We went to a contemporary African dance show on Friday night and then to dinner at a place called Krua Thai where I had perhaps the best Thai food I've ever eaten! On Saturday, I went to a party at Hannah's house with my friend Paul, and went out from there with Paul and his cousins, who are from Kampala. We had a lot of fun going to a place called the "Latino club" where the DJ played 1/3 new rap music, 1/3 rap music from 5-10 years ago, and 1/3 random music that I had never heard before that was generally not very good, haha. I tried a sort of sparkling apple cider drink that is popular here, but it was on the sweet side for me. The price of drinks is great--the most expensive drink was 5,500 UGX which is just under $3.

Sunday was spent lounging at the Kabira pool, finalizing my conclusion that my Lady Diana sunscreen is, in fact, just lotion in a bottle. Thankfully, Aaron, one of our new IPA hires, brought me some Banana Boat sunscreen this morning from the States, so I should be done with these horrific equatorial sunburns! He also bought me SPF 50--a smart move, which isn't surprising as he is a Northwestern grad! Go Cats! He graduated in '04 and just finished his master's at Columbia, and will be leading a 4-country savings program that launches in Uganda. On the sunburn side, I was fortunate enough to befriend a very nice dentist/fertility clinic worker named Carol who lives nearby. She went home and picked some fresh aloe vera from her garden for me, which feels even more amazing than the gel I purchased last week (for 32,000 UGX!) and my skin already looks much better. Carol also has decided to set me up with a young Ugandan guy named Josh, who I am apparently meeting soon. I made it clear that I have a boyfriend, so hopefully this won't be an awkward experience and I will make a nice Ugandan friend my age!

Yesterday, I had my first dinner salad at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Garden City, a nearby mall. I came to Uganda very wary of any raw vegetables because of the water issues, but so far no problem. Talking to people that have lived here, it seems that any place that actually serves salad or raw vegetables takes the proper precautions. My dinner of salad and cake (actual cake, not just dessert as Ugandans will refer to just about anything sweet as "cake") was delicious, and followed by several hours of Kindle reading and Dexter before bed. Today, we all went to eat at Potman, a local restaurant for some Ugandan cuisine. Back to beans and rice! I do miss salads and deli sandwiches, but the food here is fine. I actually love the sweet potatoes here, which are more of a white-yellow color than the orangey American hue.

As Dan, one of my co-workers, likes to say, the "brick" of local food has settled and I am craving a mid-afternoon nap! Luckily, my work is still extremely interesting. Today, I am updating our final survey to incorporate questions on 6001, the SMS system we are evaluating, in a sneaky way. We don't want the enumerators or the people being surveyed to know that the survey is specifically about 6001 (double-blind bias), so we are adding in small questions about the system here and there. Kareem and I are going to pretest some of the new questions tomorrow afternoon, which should be a lot of fun!

Excel-Loving and Internet-Hating

Let's get the hating over with first.

To begin, let me say that Internet in Africa Sucks with a capital S. When it is working (so far 75% of the time, but never when I really want it), it is soooooo slow. As I download our November data from Google, I have completed 2.8/11.6 MB, with a mere 27 minutes left! I can't upload my pictures without first converting them to a much smaller resolution image (does anybody know how to do this en masse?) and forget about watching any Jersey Shore. Anyway, I am extremely grateful to have my Blackberry functioning extremely well for the most part, and I will do my best to set much lower expectations for my Internet speed.

Now, onto the loving. For those of you that don't know exactly what I am doing here, I am working for a company called Innovations for Poverty Action. It is a nonprofit economics research group that sends people all over the world to evaluate various interventions in developing countries. Essentially, people hire us to tell them whether or not their product/approach to help people works. (sort of like a really cool consulting engagement, right?) The product I am evaluating is a new technology MTN (a large African telecom carrier) is providing that allows people in Uganda to send SMS messages asking questions about sexual and reproductive help and receive an almost instantaneous SMS response. We are partnered with Google and the Grameen Foundation for technological and financial support. (I think that's about as in-depth as I am allowed to go!)

IPA conducted a baseline survey about a year ago and collected a great deal of data on the demographics, health, and information level of Ugandans to understand how people obtain information related to health. MTN began the SMS service in the summer, and I don't think I can legally disclose how we have our treatment and control groups, so let your economic minds wonder :) Now, we're here to do the follow-up survey and evaluation to see how the service has been working and if it is changing the way people obtain health information.

Right now, I am appending mass .csv files into a beautifully labeled and formatted Excel document so we can understand the uptake rates (the percentage of people in specific groups that are using the services) and create some base assumptions for our follow-up survey. I am proud to say that my fingers have not lost my consulting-trained Excel touch, and I am even learning some new commands. While I was disgraced to see the state of some of the documentation we receive, it was a delight to transform it into a spreadsheet masterpiece.

On a more personal note, I think I am going to turn into a peanut from eating so much peanut butter. Today, I mixed it up by making a PB/Nutella (off-brand) sandwich for lunch...highly recommended. It is my fuel for my planned return to Kampala jogging tonight, which will happen as soon as this next set of data is downloaded (will let the final set download while I'm running).

On Ugandan Communication

In my 21 years of life in the U.S., I have discovered that brevity is most appreciated when communicating with fellow Americans. The straightforward, two-line email elicits an immediate Blackberry response, whereas the reply to a 4-minute voicemail is indefinitely postponed.

It is exactly the opposite here in Uganda. The most efficient way to obtain information is to make a significant initial investment in befriending a Ugandan, and then ask your question. A simple question like "Where is the nearest ATM?" will almost surely be replied to with "I don't know" (a red flag, as Ugandans always have some sort of answer, even a wrong one!) if it is not prefaced with at least 10 minutes of small talk. From an economic standpoint, it makes the most sense to make a few friends with a solid knowledge base early on.

A demonstration of Ugandan knowledge and communication: Jenn plans to meet friends for dinner at 7. She knows that the hotel where they are staying is 10 minutes away. Jenn gets on boda at 6:45. Boda driver insists that he knows where La Fontaine is. Boda driver drops Jenn off at a random location across town at 7:15, insisting hotel is nearby. Jenn gets off and goes to ask for help. At 7:45, after discussing the U.S., Chicago, economics, MTN, and her boyfriend (at least 3 times), the valet driver at a nearby hotel (who has ignored at least 5 cars) calls a cab driver to take her to La Fontaine. Jenn arrives at 8, after driving back across town. Luckily, "Africa time" holds, and she was only a few minutes past the rest of the group arriving :)

It's A Small World...

On Sunday afternoon, I went with one of my colleagues, Sarah, to a breakdance performance show. That in itself was pretty cool (and very cute, it was all kids performing!), but the amazing part was seeing Hannah Cunningham, a girl I went to high school in NC with! Just after I sat down, she came up to me, and we both freaked out! Talk about a crazy place to run into an old classmate! She worked in Uganda for a year a couple of years ago, and is back for a month doing some independent research through Williams. I went to her house for dinner afterwards, and we caught up on Chapel Hill gossip. Hannah is only here for another week, but it's great to have someone I know here as I begin to acclimate.

Yesterday, Monday, was the first day of work and my introduction to real Ugandan food! There are 10 of us (or so) working for IPA Uganda, although about half are leaving in the next week to spread to more rural areas. We spent most of the day going through administrative orientation-type stuff and learned some useful guidelines for living in Uganda. Lunch was matoke and rice with chicken. In Uganda, you order "food" and "sauce"--not much of a point in looking at the menu, since they are usually not serving a majority of the items! "Food" is a starch or choice of starches (rice, yams, some sort of porridge, matoke...I'm sure I will learn the rest). I tried matoke, a steamed plantain with a mashed potato consistency. Not very good. I had eaten matoke chips with Hannah that were delicious the night before, so perhaps my expectations were too high! The chicken was a full piece of chicken in a nicely flavored broth, that I poured over my rice. My meal, with a bottled water was 2,500 UGX (~$1.25!) Insane.

We went out to dinner with the extended IPA family for Ethiopian food, which I have never had! We ordered four large platters, two vegetarian and two carnivore. On each platter, there were 6 different foods on a large round piece of sour bread that looked like a big sponge. There are no utensils, each person grabs a piece of bread and uses it to pick up the food and eat it with the bread. Very different from anything I have ever tried, but pretty delicious. I especially liked this coleslaw-ish cabbage dish on the veggie platter. I stayed away from the meat platter; so far, the meat has been seasoned nicely but is very tough.

I spent the morning working on my thesis and at the Kabira Country Club pool--so far, the Lady Diana sunscreen seems to be doing its job. I am a little pink, but that's normal! I was planning on running, but the hills in Kampala proved to be a bit much for me yesterday morning, my leg muscles have been on fire all day! Quite a different workout than in Chicago...

Headed off to Day #2 of work now! Things are on the relaxed side now, as the survey doesn't begin until mid-February, so as Pia suggested, I am enjoying the chill work schedule. This afternoon, Kareem and I will meet with Pia for 2 hours before meeting our team leads (the people who will be supervising the survey teams).

Soy Milk in Uganda!

Last night, I went out with my housemate Becca to her friend's house for a delicious mojito and burger night and met a number of her friends/extended friends. Largely ex-pats, the group was all involved in very interesting work here, ranging from solar energy to political action to private equity! After dinner, we headed to meet Pia, the IPA country director and one of Becca's good friends, at a party at the "mazunga house." Mazunga means white person in Luganda, the local language. It's referred to as the mazunga house because there is a constant influx of new white people living there, organized by a group of Harvard grad students (I believe). I met Pia and Kareem, the guy I will be working with, there. It was a large crowd, mostly "mazungas" but some native Ugandans as well.

It seems to be a very ex-pat culture here, heavily divided, with a number of upper-class Ugandans merging into the ex-pat social clique. I'm hoping to make some native friends while here, but we will have to see!

I woke up this morning at 8:30, excited to be setting my clock to local time. After a peanut butter on "brown bread" slice (there are two kinds of bread at the grocery store, "salt bread" and 'brown bread," which seem to correspond to white and wheat), I took my yoga mat and headed up to our rooftop to get my day started right! Our dog followed me up there and promptly fell asleep. After 30 minutes, the sun was beaming down, and I became worried for my pale Chicago skin, so I moved inside.

Then, I took a boda boda (motorcycle) to Garden City, a mall one of my roommates recommended, to buy some hand soap, towels, and some other things. Grocery Store #3 was my savior--after a soymilk hunt yesterday, I happily purchased two large cartons of Vitamilk "Lait de Soja" and I could not be happier right now! I was amazed to see the premium sunscreen commanded--the least expensive bottle I found was 90,000 UGX (about $45!). Seriously?! There were a few bottles that were slightly less expensive, but they were all SPF 15 or below, and we all know how I love my Neutrogena 85. After asking some fellow shoppers, I went to a pharmacy down the street, and purchased a bottle of "Lady Diana" sunblock cream, with SPF 40, for 20,000 UGX ($10). I was slightly wary, and told the pharmacist that if I turn red, I'm coming back to find him! He assured me that I would be fine, but I can't help but be a little skeptical.

I went to a nearby Middle Eastern restaurant as soon as I saw chicken schwarma roasting...yum! The pita and hummus were mediocre, but the schwarma did not disappoint. I retreated home in a taxi with a deliciously full belly. It's cloudy now, but I'm hoping to hit the nearby Kabira Club pool in a few hours to test out my Lady Diana sunblock.

First Day!

So, my plan to sleep on my first flight, a red-eye from Chicago to Brussels, and stay awake from Brussels to Entebbe so I would be thrown into the new time zone was an epic fail. I napped for an hour or two on the first leg, but was so tired on the second leg that I slept for the first 5 hours! By the way, anybody who plans on flying through Brussels--leave a generous amount of time for your layover, as you have to go through full security again, multiple lines, and take a bus to get to the transfer terminal!

When I arrived in Entebbe, I bought my visa (very easy process), grabbed my luggage, and the IPA driver William was waiting for me with a sign. The Entebbe airport was very interesting--a huge room covered in Barclays logos where we got our visas, a large luggage area, and then a tiny waiting room area where there must have been 50 Ugandans waiting with signs to pick people up. We drove to Kampala on one highway, but I couldn't see much because the highways aren't lit. We did see a lot of people out--walking, biking, driving to bars and clubs, which were all along the highway.

I arrived at Red Chilli, a hiker's/camper's type hotel around 10:30. There were a lot of people hanging out in the bar area, but I was sorely disappointed to find the kitchen closed. I went to my room and ate Clif bar #2 (#1 was on the plane when I slept through lunch). Extremely tired, I wasn't much in the mood for socializing, but I couldn't sleep very well either. I stayed up reading my Kindle, fell asleep for a few hours, and woke up surprisingly alert around 4:30. Without much outdoor lighting, the grounds were pitch black, so I decided to break in my new Manduka Mat, eat Clif bar #3 and read a little more. The sun rose quickly between 6:30 and 6:40, and I headed down to the concierge/main area. They didn't open until 7, so I hung around outside and enjoyed the beautiful view...I also discovered that a massive amount of dogs and goats like to chill around the hotel. I even spotted a few roosters...totally random.

At 7, I went inside, finally got on the Internet, and made connection with the outside world! After some mysterious fruit (black egg-sized fruit with yellow inside and lots of seeds, very delicious) and some black tea, I headed into town on my very first boda-boda ride! I set up my Blackberry and phone (I can only do data on the BB here), exchanged some money, and went to check out a room in a house that I am now living in! The house is on Naguru Hill and it is absolutely stunning. The doors are wooden and carved, there is a roof on the top that looks perfect for morning yoga, and I even have my own bathroom! (Pictures to come later)

I moved into the house in the afternoon and hung out with my new housemate Becca. We sat on the porch and watched a quick, but mighty rainstorm that Becca told me was common. Kampala has a set of "micro-climates," so while it is pouring rain in one part of the city, it can be bright and shining in another. After the rain settled down, we walked to the nearby Kabira Club to sit by the pool with some friends and stopped by a grocery store on the way home so I could pick up a few things.

As of now, it is 6:20pm and I am absolutely exhausted but determined to stay up long enough to forcibly adjust myself to the new time zone. We are headed off to get drinks before a BBQ dinner, where I will meet Pia and Kareem, the 2 main people I will be working with at IPA.