Jet setter or jet lagged?

One year since my last post! What have I been up to that I have completely forgotten to update my blog? My first year of teaching at the University of Southern Indiana has kept me busier then I could have ever pictured with teaching, preparing lectures, grading, and all the busy administrative work that no one ever talks about that invariably comes with any job. Having been a teaching assistant (for one class) and teaching three classes while in the Gambia, I thought I would be prepared for teaching full time at a medium sized university. But I was wrong. Taking on four undergraduate courses that I had never taught before was rough! But looking back at the past year, it also feels like a rite of passage, something that all first time faculty must go through…you know because writing and defending your dissertation aren't enough stress to really judge a person’s true threshold for stress!

When I was applying for academic positions, my biggest fear was that I would be ‘stuck’ teaching biostatistics.  As an epidemiologist, biostatistics is my arch enemy! Okay, that is probably pushing it a little far, it’s not really that I don’t like biostatistics, because it is certainly necessary to everything I do in my work, but more that it would be teaching outside my subject area. So, as it turns out, I was hired to teach Biostatistics. Yep, that’s right, mistress fate has a funny way of working. Three semesters later, I am happy to say I teach biostatistics. In some ways, it helps to be a non-statistician, teaching people who are also never going to be statisticians. I can relate to the student’s fear of the subject matter and hopefully approach the subject in a non-scary way. Still, I almost cried when I had to assign failing grades my first semester. Which shows there is still room for improvement in my teaching methods. Which if you ever stop thinking you need to improve your teaching materials/methods, you are probably ready to be done teaching!

In addition to teaching, I applied for a small research award through my university. I’m happy to say I was one of the research proposals awarded! Which considering I am currently sitting in the Gambia thanks to my award, I am past due announcing it! My research will consist of assessing the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of Gambian health care workers on rapid diagnostic tests for malaria. I start collecting data on Thursday and can’t wait to get out in the field!

Travelling never seems to get any easier. Any time you fly across the country, the ocean, or continents, you are going to put in some quality time in a small seat with little padding, and no leg room. For once in my life, I’m glad I’m not tall! My trip to the Gambia consisted of six flights (with a layover in Connecticut for Paul and Vinnie’s wedding-Congratulations guys!) and about 18 hours of flying time (~30 hours travel time total). I’m not sure who designed the seats on airplanes, but they have a horrible sense of humor. One day, I plan to upgrade to those wonderful first class seats that look like actual beds. Some day. Which considering the increasing costs of research and dwindling research budgets, probably in my dreams! So I finally arrived in the Gambia sleep deprived and with a kink in my neck from attempts to sleep. I feel extremely lucky to have a wonderful research partner in Mr. Edrisa Sanyang and the University of the Gambia. Edrisa not only met me at the airport on Eid al-Fitr, but is also spending his last two weeks in the Gambia helping me collect data for my study! Congratulations to Edrisa on his acceptance into a PhD program at the University of Iowa (Go Hawks) starting this fall! 

When I awoke after 13.5 hours of sleep on my first day in the Gambia, you would think I would be able to hit the ground running. You would be wrong. I had agreed to meet Edrisa at 12 pm in Brikama to discuss our research plan. I set my alarm at 10:30 am as a backup, never thinking I would actually need it when I went to bed before 9 pm! Yes, I can see the many people familiar with my sleep habits rolling their eyes at setting the alarm for anything that late and in fact needing it! My first thought this morning…I wish I had more time to sleep. I honestly think I could have slept another five or six hours. Yep, combine a missed night of sleep, jetlag, and a long sleeper and you get a cranky girl, even after 13.5 hours! Despite my lingering jet lag, I was able to jump right back into taking public transportation. I flagged down a gilly gilly (a large van/bus that holds about 25 people) and made my way to the University of the Gambia/Gambia College campus. It was fun to take a familiar route, driving past my old junction in Yundom, seeing all the familiar landmarks. Now that I'm unpacked and settled in my home for the next 3 weeks, I'm ready to tackle my next project-data collection, but first, a little more sleep! 

A long and winding journey

How does time fly! 15 years ago, I was looking forward to starting my freshman year of college at the University of Iowa. This week, I start my career at the University of Southern Indiana, College of Nursing and Health Professions as an assistant professor! As I look forward, it feels appropriate to also take a look back and reflect on my journey up until now.

My path has certainly not been direct, instead, it has been filled with many bumps and potholes, detours, long and slow drives through 25 mph school zones, and even a few U-turns along the way, but I finally feel like I have merged onto the appropriate highway and there is a long straight path ahead to explore. 15 years ago, unlike many new students starting off at the University of Iowa, I knew exactly what I wanted to be…a doctor, specifically, a medical doctor. It didn't take too long before I knew that medicine was not for me. First, I discovered that I don’t really like to see blood, which is kind of a deterrent to becoming a doctor. Second, I started working in a microbiology laboratory with Dr. Mike Feiss and Jean Sippy. Microbiology here I come! I thought I had a new path laid out and could foresee a happy life in the lab.

Then I read a book. For those of you who know me well, you might be surprised that one book, out of the thousands I've read, could be so important, but it was. I read Paul Farmer’s Infections and Inequalities. Honestly, this book changed so much of my worldview. For the first time, I became aware that there was so much illness and poverty in the world. I wanted to try and change that. And then I saw a poster for the United States Peace Corps with the motto, “Life is calling, how far will you go?” And my life plan takes yet another detour. I pack my bags and drive cross-country to Boston to get my master’s degree in Public Health at Boston University School of Public Health. Yet, I wasn't planning to settle in and stay, as the following year I was packing yet again to move to Togo, West Africa to join the Peace Corps!

Peace Corps was an experience of the lifetime. You never learn more about yourself and what you are capable of doing until you have lived in a mud brick house with a tin roof, no running water and a pit latrine! Being medically-separated from the Peace Corps after only one year was an unexpected U-turn, but that is life and had that not happened, I would never have moved to Burlington, VT.

I moved to Vermont with just the stuff that would fit into my car, and no place to live. Lucky for me, I found a wonderful place to live and didn't end up having to live out of my car! In Burlington, I worked for a lead poisoning prevention program. This job opened my eyes to the dangers of lead and helped me to learn more about health promotion and education programs. Yet another unexpected path that provided me with a valuable life experience! In fact, anytime I visit an older house, I still check out the windows and doors out of habit. And bring up the topic of lead and I may give a spontaneous mini-lecture on the evils of lead paint. Sorry, it’s an occupational hazard.

After living in Vermont for a year, I decided it was time to be an Iowa Hawkeye again. I yet again packed my car and moved myself back to Iowa and enrolled in the University of Iowa College of Public Health PhD program in Epidemiology. As I worked my way through my PhD program, I struggled with what exactly I wanted to do with my life afterwards. Did I want to go into the public sector and work for a non-profit organization or someplace like the CDC? Or did I want to go into research? Or was academia (and teaching) the place for me. I had plenty of time and opportunity to experience many different aspects of epidemiology with my teaching, research and several trips to India. Yep, India. I went to India on a 3-week study aboard program with Dr. Anne Wallis. Mainly, it had been a couple years since I traveled and I was getting itchy feet. The trip turned into so much more. I not only had the opportunity to explore India, but I discovered a dissertation project and ended up returning to India for a 3 month trip to collect data. As I wound down my PhD program, I had the opportunity to travel to the Gambia and teach epidemiology for a new master’s program at the University of the Gambia (UTG). That started a partnership that continues to this day and I hope continues well into the future. After graduating with my PhD, I dropped my cat off with my parents and flew back to Africa for a second stint with the Peace Corps. Not a conventional post-graduation decision, but one that turned out to be a wonderful experience.

In the Gambia, I was once again a Peace Corps volunteer, although this time it was as a PC Response volunteer and only for a short, 5 month period. I taught several classes for Gambia College and UTG. Many of my experiences are detailed in earlier posts in this blog. All in all, it was a busy 5 months of teaching and research. I feel like I made many friends and look forward to the opportunity to return to the Gambia in the future!

Once returning from the Gambia, my life once again took a turn with a job offer from the University of Southern Indiana. So at the beginning of August, I packed up my house and my cat and made the 400+ mile journey to my new home in Evansville, IN.

It is said that hindsight is 20/20 and when I look back on the last 15 years, I don’t feel like I was on some rough and bumpy road of mistakes, but more that I took the scenic route, full of beautiful side trips, unexpected surprises and many, many wonderful memories. As I look forward to my first week of classes, I take with me a suitcase full of wonderful experiences and hope there is room to jam in a few more. But not to worry, the last 15 years has made me an expert at packing a suitcase!

All packed and ready to go…

I don’t know what it is about taking trips, but I get really excited about traveling. Whether it is leaving on a new adventure or returning home from one, I really enjoy the moving from place to place. And the packing. I love to pack! I don’t know whether it is some kind of combination of OCD and anxiety or something else, but I tend to start packing well before a journey. And I’m not talking a day or two early, but more like weeks. Here I am, 10 days away from leaving the Gambia and I could walk out the door in less than an hour. Because I am pretty much packed and ready to go and I have been for several days…ok, probably closer to a week. I can’t help it. I usually start with a list, but the list quickly turns into a pile. Once the pile is large enough, I pull out the suitcase and it’s all downhill from there. And even though I am already pretty much packed, I’ll probably unpack everything and repack it…just for fun.

My five months in the Gambia is coming to a close and I will really miss this country, my colleagues, and my students. I have made a home here and I am already trying to figure out how to come back. I will miss the beautiful beaches and the goats. Yeah, weird priorities there. It’s just that baby goats are soooo cute! How often in the US do you get to watch a baby goat walk past you while you check your email? I’m guessing not often. One thing I won’t miss…the hot season! I have been feeling hot and sticky for the last month. Combine that with the ever present dust and it is not a pretty picture. And while I do have a fan, which I cart from room to room and turn to face me at all times, that only works when there is electricity. Of which there is none currently. I usually enjoy the heat, but not the sweating. It is no fun typing on a computer when you can feel the sweat dripping off your elbows and chin. At least I like to shower. This type of weather is definitely 2 shower a day weather. I would swear that even my hair is sweating. Seriously. And traveling by public transportation makes this hot weather even more fun. I tend to feel like a sweaty sardine when I get out of the taxi. It is usually pretty tight which means both you and your neighbor(s) are tightly packed and sweating. Let’s just say I like to shower after taking a taxi home from work.

I wish it would rain. I have been in the Gambia for almost 5 months and it has rained three times, both of those times were in the past 2 weeks. So when they say it’s the dry season, they aren't kidding. June is the start of the rainy season, but it doesn't really get going until July and August. So I won’t see a lot of rain before I leave. Which is sad. One of my favorite memories from living in Togo was lying in bed at night, listening to the rain on my tin roof.

Well, I should check my laundry…something might be dry and then I could pack it! 

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, especially my dad, Dennis Reynolds. I can’t say enough or often enough how lucky I am to have you as my father. I know my sister would agree, we definitely got lucky in the parent lottery (and that goes for both parents)! Dad, I didn't have the opportunity to get you a Father’s Day card this year, so let this be my Father’s Day card. 

Dear Dad,

You have always been there for me. I remember you reading me Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop and letting me jump on you as they do in the story. Or when you would come home on your lunch hour to bring me 7-Up when I was home sick from school and to this day I still associate 7-Up with being sick and it never fails to make me feel better. Every swim meet and softball game, you was there to help celebrate a win or a good swim or console after a loss. You taught me how to ride a bike and later how to drive a car and how to check my oil. Or the fact that I still get a teddy bear every Valentine’s Day…even when I was living in the Gambia! You have always been a good listener when I need advice and while you might not always agree with my decisions, I know that doesn’t stop you from supporting my ability to choose my path in life. You are the best and I love you!

Love,

Erin

Sun burned in Africa

So the other day, I went to the beach. Which is not something I do often here in the Gambia despite the lovely beaches only a few miles away. And it isn’t that I didn’t put sunscreen on…because I did…sort of. But when you are as lacking in melanin as I am, a little sunscreen, haphazardly applied, isn’t going to cut it. Now I am aware of the dangers of sun damage. People of Irish descent are educated very young about the need to apply sunscreen or suffer the consequences. And I have been good! Really, I have. I haven’t had a really bad burn since I was a little kid. Well, I just went and broke my record. And spent a lot of time educating Gambians about sunburns and blister burns and yes, that hurts don’t touch me. While I knew my back hurt like crazy, I only have a small mirror and not a good source of light, so I really couldn’t tell just how bad it was. But when a student asked me what all the strange white dots were on my back and I realized I wasn’t just badly sunburned, but I had a very lovely blister burn. Well, that explains the intense pain associated with laying on my back, wearing clothes, letting my hair touch my back, showering…you know everything. And it also explains the reason so many Gambians were apologizing to me when they get a look at my back. Which is strange. It isn’t really their fault. I just wasn’t made to be exposed to the sun in the Gambia. But if any good could come from this burn (and I can laugh about it now because it is almost done peeling…for the third time), then it would be that at least 150 Gambians (I have a lot of students) now know that sunburns exist, that they hurt (like the devil), and that they are lucky they were born with melanin.

Which leads me to the topic of skin lightening. No, not for me! There isn’t much room for me to get lighter, although I am sporting a pretty nice tan thanks to 3 months in Africa. But African woman and their desire to have lighter skin. And some men too although that is less common. And really, it is not just Africa since I saw many, many commercials and products for skin lightening in India too. Women all over the world seem to wish for different colored skin. If you are born pale, you want a tan. If you are born dark, you want to be lighter. So some people bake in the sun, increasing their risk for skin cancer, while others apply caustic chemicals to their skin to become lighter which can lead to a number of nasty skin disorders. I like to think that I am pretty happy with my skin color. I don’t bother to go tanning and I don’t go in for the spray tans. But then I get a horrible sun burn/blister burn and I do find myself wishing I could have been born with darker skin and the luxury of not needing to wear sunscreen every time I want to spend more than 30 minutes in the sun. Oh well, that is life. 

Sweet tooth attack!

Now, I’m not going to go so far as to say it was a mistake to make rice pudding, because that would be lying to myself. But, it was a mistake to make so much rice pudding. When you have the willpower of a dust mite, you really shouldn’t have access to large quantities of a favorite dessert. And unfortunately, I love rice pudding. And it is something that doesn’t need an oven…just rice, milk, sugar, and cinnamon. The problem is that I also don’t like to share rice pudding so when I make a vat of it (which I may have done) then I end up eating it all myself. I kind of feel like a bad person when I think about having to share it and not wanting to, but since I’m not usually a bad person, I usually give in and share which is sad because then there is less for me. Which is good, because no one, and I mean no one should eat the quantities of rice pudding that I have consumed. So I was craving something sweet. It’s probably a result of coming down from the sugar high during the recent field trip. The boys discovered I like attaya which meant that I got a fairly constant stream of it during the weekend. Add that to the regular tea they served with every meal (they put both sweetened condensed milk and regular sugar in their tea) and that adds up to more sugar than I normally allow myself access to.  I try not to keep cookies (or biscuits as they are called here) in the house. In fact, other than my fake sugar crystal light and small amounts of sugar for tea, I don’t have a single sweet item in the house. Which is where the rice pudding comes into play. I saw the rice in my food bin. And started thinking it would be nice to have rice pudding. I told myself no, you already had dinner and you ate a sausage roll and two donuts (Gambian style so not exactly what you are thinking) for lunch. But, I am terrible at resisting once I think about baking…even if it isn’t really baking. And I really miss baking. The cookies, brownies, breads, and other fun treats from Pinterest…I really wish I had an oven! And this is what gets me in trouble and the only thing I have all the ingredients for is rice pudding…which I love. I am feeling a little sick now and should probably plan to take a nice long walk tomorrow to walk off the excess…but I think I satisfied my sweet tooth…for now. Too bad there is still leftovers in the fridge. 

Field Trip HNDII

Well it appears that I have been remise in updating my blog! The last time I wrote, I was on trek with my HNDIII students. Since then, a month has passed during which I have traveled to the US for the wonderful wedding of my good friend Miss Kat and her new husband Jimmy in beautiful Miami Beach. It was an opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet new ones! See the beautiful picture Derek took of me at the wedding!

I came back to the Gambia even busier than when I left! I have spent the last month preparing lectures, giving lectures, and more than anything else…grading assignments. It always seems like a good idea at the time to give homework and then I receive a giant pile back from the students and regret that decision to the extreme. One of the fun things I have been working on was my second field trip. This trip was for with the second year students and would be going to the same location as before, but discussing childhood mortality and diarrhea. I was determined that this field trip would be different than the last one were we were late to everything we planned. This was the trip that we would be on time. The trip where we would do all the things we said we would do. I started bugging P.S. about the arrangements more than three weeks ahead of the trip. I asked about the transportation. Was it arranged? Was there fuel? What there enough space for all the students and the faculty? What about the sleeping arrangements? Was there enough rooms, enough mattresses? And then I took over the scheduling and time arrangements. I threatened the students with point deductions for any late arrivals to the planned activities. They all agreed to pretend they were American for three days. I even made an itinerary! This trip was going to be different.

But it wasn’t. We left one hour and fifteen minutes late. Not because any of the faculty were late. Not because of the students. Not because of the vehicle or the driver. We didn’t have the keys to the campus where we were staying in Bwiam. We had to wait for the person with the keys to come from Banjul to deliver the keys. So not really within our control. So we finally get started, 4:15 pm rather than 3:00 pm and right away, we have to stop…just a few kilometers from the school to pick up the generator for the film show that we planned for Friday evening. We stopped in Brikama, all the students dispersed to try to buy last minute treats for the trip…luckily, we stopped next to one of the toubaab mini-markets run by Indians. Diet Coke!!!!! I bought all that they had…all 5 cans. As you can see, Diet Coke makes me happy.

Then the second piece of bad news…the generator doesn’t work. So, film show is canceled. Oh well. Guess we will just plan to have a fun evening once we get to Bwiam…or so we thought. We get about 30-40 minutes down the road and the driver stops to look at one of the tires. Never a good sign. But he says we will drive a little further and stop to put air in the tire. This is starting to reminded me of the ill-fated trip Anne Wallis and I took from Mysore to Madurai last April….the one where we had a flat tire (1.5 hours to change the flat), then we got hit by a truck (another hour or so stopped to assess the damage), then we stopped for a couple hours at a police station, then we get transferred to a government bus and what started out as a 10 hours trip ended up taking 17 hours.  I tell this story to Amadou W. Jallow, one of the other faculty, and no sooner do I finish the story and boom….flat tire. I should probably refrain from telling these types of stories in the future since I appear to be lucky! Well, it turns out that we don’t really have a flat since our bus has those big truck tires that lose layers. But still not good that a large chunk of the outer tire is missing. By the way…we are currently limping along the road in order to get to a place where we can get a spare and I was just handed a glass of attaya. My students apparently took the opportunity of the stop to inspect the tire to start making attaya.

But when we decided to keep going further, they just transferred the charcoal stove, hot coals, and boiling teapot to the slow moving bus in order to continue making attaya. Yep, they are brewing tea on the bus. Have I mentioned that Gambians love attaya? Not that I can complain, since I not only enjoy it, but look forward to opportunities to drink it…even if it is on the bus en route to our destination. So not only have we canceled our evening plans, but we will be lucky to get to Bwiam before dark. More updates to come….

We make to the village that supposedly has spares. We were told it was 10 km away…30 km later we finally arrive. It is quickly becoming dark. We will either get a spare or continue to slowly drive down the wrong side of the highway till we get to Bwiam. Yes, we drove 30 km on the wrong side of the road. The roads here aren’t really flat, they are slightly convex. Since the bad tire was on the right side, we drove on the far left of the road to help take weight off that side. So Amadou spent the whole time hanging out the front door signally to oncoming vehicles that they needed to go around us. We had a few exciting moments. Right now, we are sitting on the side of the road in yet another village and I am watching them stand around discussing the tire. I wish I was better at languages, then maybe I wouldn’t feel so lost about what is going on. At least I have a good sense of humor. I keep telling the students that these things happen. That no field trip is perfect and you have to be flexible…within reason that is...being late because students take too long in the shower is completely different from being late due to a flat tire. So this doesn’t mean I won’t be a time Nazi tomorrow during data collection!

Hopefully we figure the tire out soon and get back on the road!

Well, the decision was made to continue with the tire as is and continue to make our way slowly to Bwiam. Since night had fallen by the time that we made this decision, it made for an interesting ~15 km. All in all, we ended up driving 45 km with the tire in what could be described as less than ideal conditions. After dark, we didn’t dare stay on the wrong side of the road since it would be too dangerous, instead we just drove down the middle of the road. Getting over when needed. It was a fun time. Sort of. Anyways, we arrived in Bwiam at 8:30 pm, 4 hours and 15 minutes after we set out from Brikama. It should have taken 1.5 hours. I arranged for the food to get to the kitchen, asked one of the girls to inform the cooks that we hired as to what to make and then started to get the students settled. 45 minutes later, I went to check on dinner and the cooks were just sitting there! They said they couldn’t make what we had planned! I ran back to grab the class captain, Jomma. She quickly settled the problem but now it is after nine pm and dinner hasn’t even been started. It is going to be a late night. We eventually ate sandwiches with boiled eggs, potatoes, onion, mayo and salad (lettuce) for me and the addition of sardines (gross) for the rest of the group around 11:00 pm. Needless to say, it was a late night, and with three to a room (sharing two beds pushed together), not the best night’s rest I’ve ever had.

I was up early Saturday morning due to the fact that everyone else was also up and I am unused to so many people being around in the mornings. My goal for today was to get the day started on time! Breakfast (according to the itinerary posted on the doors and with each supervisor) was scheduled to start at 7:30 am…when I went to the kitchen at 6:30 am, not a cook in sight. Slightly panicky, with my entire day’s schedule hanging in the balance, I make Fatajo call the cooks. Call the bread guy. Call again. The girls save the day and start getting the beans cooking and cutting up the onions. The cooks arrive and I start haunting the kitchen, asking how long? When will it be ready? They keep saying almost. People always say almost when they don’t want to tell me how long it will really be. I ask, can I help if it will go faster? No. I start sweeping, just to do something. They take the broom away from me. I get it, I’m not allowed to help and since I do not have the power to make the beans cook faster, nothing to do but wait. We eat a little after 8:00 am and it was like a plague of locusts descending on a field of crops. They ended up eating so fast that we actually ended up ahead of schedule! We break into groups and head out to canvass Bwiam on foot. I took a picture of my group in the hopes that I would be able to recognize them and maybe, just maybe learn their names. 

The original plan was to head out to some rural village, the same that we visited during the first field trip, but without a vehicle, we had to alter our plans and remain locally. Data collection goes well, even faster than expected. The students finish early, having done all the assigned surveys during the first data collection period. Which is good since we needed a vehicle to get to the village where we planned to do the afternoon data collection so that wasn’t going to happen either way.

Now we get to kick back and relax after a wonderful meal of chicken benechin. I saw dinner and it also involves chicken, so I am looking forward to enjoying that meal too! The students organize a football tournament among the four data collection groups and it was fun to watch the impromptu game with rocks for the goal, a tree in the middle of the pitch, and elevated rock path in the middle. I’m always amazed at how well Gambian’s play with whatever they have available. Some play in flip flops, others in their bare feet. Which doesn’t stop the ferociousness of their play at all. A dance party is planned for after dinner so it should be a fun (although not an early) night! Out transport back to Brikama in the morning is still up in the air, so it will be interesting to see how we get 46 students, 4 faculty, and one bus driver back home on a bus with a bad tire…still not fixed.

Sunday was a nice rest day. We verified all the questionnaires and had breakfast and then headed back home to Brikama. The driver had the two bad tires rotated so that they were on opposite sides and he thought that would be good enough to get us home. The trip involved a lot of singing, dancing, and of course…attaya. How could a trip on a bus be complete without attaya!

I arrived back on campus, tired but feeling great about how this teaching trip went. I hope the students got as much learning from the trip as they did entertainment. I’ll have to put my foot down the next time they decide to have a dance party till 2 am! This girl needs her sleep! As we pulled up to the building and exited the bus, the bus driver promised me that the next trip will have good tires, a spare and a tire iron! So one more field trip to go…let’s see what adventures that one will bring!