Like this:

It’s been tough transitioning into the week after spending the weekend at the finca. I really do like it there but me thinks I had more than my share of corn products for the remainder of the year. Spending your Saturday eating, drinking, and laughing with family (even if their not your family) is always relaxing and so coming back to work Monday was a shocker. Boy did we hit the ground running.

We head out to Matagalpa tomorrow. So in preparation for this, we spent this afternoon going through bags filled with patient files to find addresses for our site visits (I won’t get into the state of the files themselves, but know there was bug spray involved). Addresses: this should be exciting mainly because there are no street signs here and so everything is described in relation to something else. Look up the address to one place and it references another place. Look up the place it references and it references yet another. Good luck finding your destination if you’re not from around here. After my first couple of weeks in Managua I had a new found appreciation for maps and street signs.

So, it is still a bit of a shock to me that I managed to drive my mum and I about when she was here. It wasn’t so bad if we look past an incident where I was driving towards a bunch of headlights. I should mention, that they were so impatient with the traffic ahead that they decided to drive on the wrong side of the road. BUT…I digress. I finally managed to get those photos off my digital camera last night, so here are a few photos meant for the last post. I’ll catch up. I promise.

In the process of looking for addresses, my supervisor said something to me that really stuck out. And I agree with her wholeheartedly. When you’re doing quantitative research you focus so much on counting that you can get caught up in a sea of numbers. And unless you get the numbers everyone else has deemed are benchmarks for success or failure of your project you don’t really see the impact you have. When you’re going through patient files and reading notes you realize how many lives were saved in the process. You see how many referrals, tests, and diagnostics, were done depending on what stage of illness/cancer the woman had, but because you’re not looking at numbers and counting this often is overlooked. But knowing that and seeing it is motivating to continue qualitative research and continue the programs that yield these outcomes.

Enjoy the photos.

Catedra de Granada.

Sacuanjoche or Nicaraguita...the National flower. It smells heavenly. (Yes, you can find better photos of plumeria on the web.)

Lakefront... Nice photo, mum!

We were tempted to go on the boatride but the rain helped us decide against that.

Mrs. and Ms. Ah-ha-oh

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