Hello, Bogotá. And everyone. Everyone being you. (Thanks for reading, reader!)

I’m back to present the results of my research, as any good CBPR-er should. To recap: my time in Colombia flew by. After data collection, I edited reports

People edit papers at the mall all the time, amirite?

and collected more data in Peru, where the food was delicious

Cue drooling.

and one hotel was the most luxurious place I have ever stayed in my short and poor life

Consuming a welcome beverage while on a work trip?! Does not compute.

and the other hotel was reminiscent of Kubrick. I finished Six Feet Under (which reinvigorated my interest in getting all my end-of-life wishes in writing), went to a wine tasting event with Columbia University alum in Bogotá,

Lesson learned: red you smell…white you drink.

got PADI Open Water certified, figured out how to carve a Thanksgiving turkey,

Cranberry sauce remix = simmering blueberry jam with cranberry juice

spent an afternoon convinced I had tested positive for HIV, decorated two Christmas trees in one day,

Enough holidaze for a couple months

and now I’m back randomly petting the cats. I missed the papas criollas:

but mostly, I missed the people. Oh, I think they like me. The months holed up in the library making friends with a data organization program and living on air and vending machine snacks paid off. I turned in my thesis, passed the CPH and am now in Bogotá for a long weekend, to share the results with my participants, who became my friends.  Gradumacation, with all its pompous circumstances, is on the horizon. Time to follow my dreams and aggressively shimmy my way back into the gritty city.

You tell ‘em, mhmm!

Preparing for Thanksgiving in Colombia: Recipes Request

Last week I had the brilliant idea to joke about celebrating Thanksgiving here, at my coworker’s apartment. I was imagining something simple, just us and the cats watching a historically accurate rendition of American history:

Your people will have stickshifts.

Instead, the idea of celebrating Thanksgiving after work next Thursday has caught on and now there are five of us. Have I mentioned I don’t cook? My family has spent some Thanksgivings in restaurants. Most of my Thanksgiving knowledge is from the Pepper Ann episode where all the shelves are empty and people are fighting over the last yam. I don’t even really know what a yam is. The Thanksgivings I remember spending at home involve my sister playing Turkey Time until everyone has it stuck in their head for weeks. (Fair warning about clicking that link.)

I’m worried we’ll end up eating Charlie Brown style:

This blockhead cooked all this.

I suppose this is the day to make lists of ingredients and start buying…yams? Any and all recipes are requested, as is advice on cooking times. How do I know when I’ve found the right turkey? Do I have to make stuffing? Is apple cake as culturally appropriate as apple pie? Help!

Welcome Columbia University Public Health Blog Readers!

If you’re here from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health blog, I’m grateful for your interest. Here are a couple posts to get you caught up:

Maybe you’re wondering about me, where I’m from, what I’m doing, where, and why. Or maybe you just want to know about Colombia, the hospitable people, where to go, what to do. Perhaps you’re curious about non-work things, like dance class, food and food poisoning or if you should live close to your practica. Take a look around!

The truth is, I’ve been lackadaisical lately. My last post was in October…and it’s past the middle of November already. I’m not as negligent as a certain medical student I know, nor am I as regular as an esteemed graduate student adviser. I’m somewhere in between. I’ve been collecting data, analyzing data, preparing instruments for submission to the institutional review board (IRB). The usual excuses.

Nonetheless, I’d like to write with more regularity and this little, unexpected spotlight makes me want to write more. What would you like to read about? I have a post in the works about Zipaquira, the local transportation system, and about the logistics of research. I’m happy to field questions or focus on a particular aspect of public health, living abroad, or evaluation research. Questions and suggestions are welcome in the comments!

There Are No Perfect Words: Just Be There

I didn’t sleep last night, so I was tired coming into work, my brain a fuzzy cotton ball. Unfocused thoughts, threads of meaning, half-decisions appearing and disappearing into the grey matter fog. My coworker told me that my eyes looked like they needed pajamas. At dance class last week, it was clear. Why I am doing this, why this work is my work, this blood my blood.

Five years  ago I worked at a fancypants sleepover camp, supervising counselors, delivering Important Messages From Above, making sure beds had (only) the assigned bodies in ‘em at night, talking in soothing tones with parents on the phone. It was a walking behind the elephant kind of job, and I relished any time I had with actual campers, with young people, with high schoolers. I can’t help it. I like their angsty, precocious, hopeful, fatalistic awkwardness. I like how they surprise me, make me want to be a better example, call me out when I stray from my own principles.

I was called to talk to a girl who stepped out of class crying and didn’t come back for a while. Ten or 15 minutes maybe. I sat next to her and she wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, said she’d get in trouble. I laid out the usual boundary: only if you plan on hurting yourself or others, maybe I mentioned sharing only up not out. I don’t know how she ended up telling me, because thinking back all I remember is her not looking at me, and crying, her face red and splotchy. Her boyfriend was being hurt by his family and she was far away and can’t help or comfort him. He was in a bad state, and so was she, by extension. What is there, really, to say to that? After going to school to study language and signs and meaning I can safely say that there’s just nothing to say, most of the time. There are no magic words. Later that day, I searched for places he could call and go, gave her a list when no one was looking.

Today in the middle of lunch, my coworker asked me to stop eating and come with her. Could I do a counseling session for a non-native speaker? After some quick thinking we decided that me interpreting for a counselor would be better. The woman had been here prior, with another interpreter, and the decision she had reached then was different than the one she was - adamantly and with much conviction - choosing now. The pressure to translate clearly and unequivocally, combined with the energy of her anxiety and frustration made me shake from nervousness. The mantra I had from camp – be the calmest person in the room – smoothed things out only slightly. I still said “sanitary napkins” instead of um, “pads” about five times. Cringe-worthy translation, my friends. Not my proudest moments as a polyglot.

What a complicated situation to be in, to be in another country with imperfect knowledge of the language, making decisions alone. I wanted to reach out and touch her, hold her hand through the fog and shakiness. Tomorrow I am going in with her, to interpret from the sidelines or maybe just to offer a familiar language, to witness and just be there.

I think sometimes the most we can offer each other is to just be there, to confirm that we are not ever really all alone.

Thank you, Julia!: A Package Arrives to Loud Cheering

I haven’t been the most diligent blogger lately. First it was a physical malady, then analyzing data from Peru took over my life, and  now I’ve been staying up until 6 am working on reports and the endless lit review. But I digress. I do have a moment for a quick update to share my joy at receiving a package.

It arrived last week, in a little box with lots of tape. It had crumpled up glossy magazine pages protecting the gifts inside.

One magazine went where no other magazine had gone before…

It had delicious, useful, and silly items inside. Sunblock, my favorite tea, Dr. Bronner’s, granola floss, lint picker-uppers, and more!

If you’re thinking of sending a package…Just send it!

There was much curiosity and excitement about the new items, and the box they came in. I shared the almond butter and peanut butter with coworkers and drank the vitamin C during dance class. The most curious were the cats I am taking care of this month.

Sniffing analysis ascertained that the box came from far away. 

So, thank you, Julia! Beloved, thoughtful, warm-hearted friend. I am so grateful & the cats are too.

PS If you’d like to send me a package in the next month, here’s where to send it: Calle 33A 17-60 Teusaquillo, Bogotá, Colombia.

Detour to Ralph City: Adventures in Food Poisoning

Last night was spent in Ralph City, befriending the toilet. Not one of my favorite places to visit, but food poisoning doesn’t care where you want to go. It started with chills, which kept multiplying. Soon, I was losing control.

The experience was a lot less exciting than this video portrays.

I’ll spare you (most of) the salacious details. Suffice it to say that chocolate ice cream does not taste better the second time around. Especially when it is coming out of your nose.

I think mozzarella cheese is to blame. My coworker gave me a turtle-shaped piece, and I kept it in my bag for a day before refrigerating it. You’d think I’d know better! After dance class, I was excited to come home and make a barebones caprice salad – tomato, mozzarella and balsamic vinegar only. I also ate some potatoes that have been hanging out, covered, on the stove top for a day or two. Who knows what caused it?

The important part is, everything came back quickly, in liquid form, at all hours of the night. I spent the morning drifting in and out of sleep, with a purring cat next to me. This afternoon’s plans includes savoring crackers and black tea, between sips of water. Maybe if my coworker comes over for lunch, I’ll ask her to bring a weirdly colored sports drink. And then we can watch this hilarious overly enunciated video:

Why yes, I have eaten a type of food product!

Food poisoning suggestions, stories and commiseration welcome in the comments.

Focus Groups with Women: Things Left Unsaid

I started focus groups with contraceptive users yesterday. It’s been providers only before, gathering data for my practicum. Women, contraceptive users, clients – however you call them, are completely different. Their stories get into your heart, their words are less precise, their qualms don’t fit into charts and tables.

It’s draining. I had two groups today, maybe that’s why I want to crawl into bed and eat Rocky Road ice cream with potato chips. For a week. While watching addicting bad tv.

Maybe it’s because I had a million things I wanted to tell them, clarify, provide resources. But focus groups aren’t about that. I can observe and try to improve things later on, but in the moment I am helpless to change anything. I agree and accept all sorts of responses, reactions I wouldn’t dream of encouraging if I were presenting, teaching, training.

The things I wish I could have said pile up throughout the hour or two, linger in my head at the end, when the women leave alone or in pairs, thanking me or walking out quietly. This happened in DR too, when I did life story interviews there. (Much messier, completely unstructured, unsupervised, ultimately unused.) So much I wish I could have said, could say.  If wishes were horses…here is what I would have said, were it possible, were it up to me:

1. Your body is yours. Not your lover’s, not your husband’s, not your children’s. Yours. You are responsible for it, for doing what is right for you, for ensuring – at times, forcefully – that others respect this right, your decisions, your needs.

2. Whether or not you want to be pregnant is your choice. Yours alone. My heart aches for you that your experience has been one of disassociation, abandonment, fear, resignation. You deserve to be happy.

3. I don’t know how to help. I very much wish I did. I am working on things that might maybe end up helping you, or women like you, sometime in the future. But this moment? I am at a loss.

After Work: Dance Class in Bogota

My work has dance classes twice a week. After hours, we get together , six or so women with an instructor and dance for an hour and a half. Salsa, bachata, cha-cha-cha. We warm up doing aerobics moves that remind me of my mom’s classes at the Y, where I tend to fall off the plastic step thinger right in the middle of choreographed dance moves. Vine step to the right, now lift and back. The windows fog from all the sweating and moving in a little space.

Guess who drew the faces.

It makes me think of 80s clothes and Madonna headsets. We have complicated feet AND arm movements and lots of me jumping, taking wide steps, looking like a giraffe. I am (unintentionally?) the class clown. I am excited to learn, momentarily discouraged, eager to show the instructor that I am slightly less left-footed as the rest of Gringolandia. So far I am not having much luck, though I persist in the effort.

This week only three of us could be there, so I suggested we learn something complicated to make the other classmates regret not prioritizing our dance class. Our ever-obliging instructor taught us some fancy cha-cha-cha moves. Here is how we looked after an hour:

Russian Goldilocks Goes to the Dentist: Medical Tourism in Bogota

My coworkers heard I was looking for a dentist(1), and brought me to three. They didn’t just give me the number for their dentists, but called and scheduled an appointment for me, accompanied me there, asked about the price (2) before I could.

The first one talked at length about his appreciation for public health (3), his client who works for an important organization, offered to pass along my CV. I was diagnosed with 9 cavities and quoted $2,800,000 COL (about $1,400 USD). I left with free toothpaste and qualms about the cost of medical tourism.

I can has freedom from cavities?

The second one didn’t use gloves, was rushed, and decidedly against electric toothbrushes. “I say, bring it on vacation so people can hear you using it and think, wow, she has an electric toothbrush.” Two cavities were diagnosed at $200,000 COL (about $100 USD) for fillings.

Я испугалась.

The third one was a Russophile, named every friend who had studied in Russia, told me every Russian word he knew. Turns out I brush my teeth all wrong. Now I have to brush down from my gums on the top teeth and up from my gums on the bottom teeth, so my gums stop receding. Stick around, gums! Two cavities were diagnosed, and it’d cost $260,000 COL (about $130 USD) to fix ‘em. I got a new toothbrush and toothpaste to take home.

All three dentists handed me a little mirror to see each cavity as they poked around my mouth. Felt less like highway robbery that way.

——————————————————–

(1) I haven’t been to the dentist in about 2 years, due to bureaucratic headaches. I’ve had teeth drilled without anesthesia, chipped my front tooth while biting a swimming poll and had a crown fall out while eating breakfast. Genes and a love of sweets is to blame, though for someone with such “bad teeth” I take good care of my pearly whites. Getting an electric toothbrush for Christmas last year was the highlight of the holiday.

(2) When I lived in Boston, I went to a fancy Pankey dentist, who had free toothpaste samples and the latest equipment (tongue cancer detector machine?). When my insurance ran out, so did she. Out of the room, in the middle of me saying, “I know I need a new crown, but I’ve used up my dental insurance allotment and can’t pay what you’re charging…”

(3) Then, I went to Tufts Dental Clinic where I had the most amazing dentist from the Midwest, with gentle hands and the bluest eyes. He used to smile so big when talking about his wife. He ‘d personally remind everyone about appointments, gave us his cell phone number. It was a sad day when he graduated and moved far away.

Lessons from My First Focus Group

1. Use your local experts

I didn’t sleep well the night before. It felt like Christmas. I had gone over the focus group guide with my local version of Linda Cushman three times. We were playing with the order of the questions, the wording, the probes. Key stakeholders had reviewed the guide, suggested edits, reworded questions. I reviewed my Research Design and Data Collection class notes.

Take a seat wherever you’d like.

2. Check, double check

The table was set with pencils, paper, and name tags. I had my consent forms, focus group guide, and pen. The two digital records had fresh batteries and had been checked. The large butcher paper and markers were at the ready. The corner table had drinking water and glasses. My assistant had been prepped.

I was ready.

This is me looking ready.

3. Breathe

It was 3 pm. Then 3:05. I started fiddling with the chairs, nametags, recorders. I went to ask the front desk if my participants had arrived, if they were in that day, if we could call them.

4. Send Reminders

At 3:10, four out of six had arrived. The other two weren’t available. We went on without them. Sometimes I was flustered, awkward, spoke too fast. Overall, it was okay. We laughed. We understood each other. It felt like teaching, like presenting, like interviewing. All these things I like to do mixed together.

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I tried writing a post before having my first focus group, but all I got was: OMGz sdkjfer029irflkdjlfkjslkfj. Really. That incomprehensible onomatopoeic string was the entire post.