One student's (overly ambitious?) quest to collect all her dissertation data in three countries in 60 days.
At long last I have received the approval letter from the Research Ethics Committee! Don’t get too excited…I still have to get the necessary approval from the Ministry of Health. Originally, the thought was that the approval from the Ministry would take two days. Then again, I was supposed to have my letter from the […]
I thought perhaps the Research Ethics Committee would decide to give me an approval for my Anniversary, but still no luck. Instead, I got to transcribe one hour and 37 minutes of an interview with a hammer banging loudly in the background and a squeaky door swinging open and closed. At least Elena did an […]
To escape the confines of the guest house where we’ve been holed up transcribing most days, I took the bus down to Manda Hill shopping plaza where they have a great little café that was referred through the expat community. On my way back, I made a class rookie mistake. You see, I’ve become quite […]
I’m really starting to hate the tomorrow game. The tomorrow game convinced me to extend my stay in Zambia by a week. The tomorrow game led me to believe that I would have the necessary approval from the Research Ethics Committee at the end of last week and the necessary approval from the Ministry by […]
In my few days here, I feel like I’ve been to two Lusaka’s. The first Lusaka was big and overwhelming and scary, and I had no interest in exposing myself any more than necessary to it’s busy highways, sprawling neighborhoods, unfamiliar faces, and multiple languages. Our first two days here, we saw the guesthouse, the […]
We had a rather comical arrival in Zambia. I carried my 3 foot tall giraffe, Murphy (don’t ask), wrapped in bubble wrap, and he actually flew in the cockpit on our flight there. Elena accidentally brought her scissors and pocket-knife on the plane. And it was only after we had landed that we learned of […]
In the spirit of USA’s recent win against Algeria, I thought I would finally write a post of our World Cup adventure. First, you have to know that Elena and I had talked about going to the USA-England game, but several attempts at getting tickets had fallen through. A couple days before the game, we […]
We’re making incredible progress. I really hadn’t expected to actually meet all data collection goals in 2 countries, but it looks like we’re on track to do just that. We had our second focus group today and our fourth key informant interview. We’ve got one more of each and then surveys and then we’re done […]
I had planned to take a day to rest and relax…I would sleep in, take a short trip to the Manzini Market, sit outside in the sun to read a book, go for a walk around town, and maybe even take a nap. It was certainly a day off, but not the lazy one I […]
Although we have yet to analyze the surveys for Lesotho, we were very impressed with how thoughtfully and thoroughly they were completed. Even though comments were optional, we got some really great feedback. This was the only thing that kept us going for the last full 3 days late into the night to do all […]
