So that was my first attempt at Creme Bruleé, it turned out okay, but I think I needed to account for the extra moisture from the passion fruit. Oh well, next time. It was still yummy but the consistency wasn't right.
OK where did we leave off? Oh yeah, we were going to be evac'ed to Nairobi, that went well, more like a vacation, yeah, in case of questions, see Katie's post. Big shout out to my Dad who donated $200 to help the orphans in Masago! That is going to help the feeding programs so much and help keep kids healthy!
Lets see, I keep thinking of things in my day and thinking "Awesome! I'm totally going to write that in the blog!" and then when I actually get home, I have completely forgotten it. So pretend i told you all about awesome things! yay!
Yeah, I'm still tired.
So, the past week or two has been really good for the project. The software is finished and has been moved onto the main server, which means we are up and running there. Komolo and I have trained the first three health centers, and starting Monday we will be taking trips around to see how the ID card distribution is going and if the health staff has any questions about the program as it stands.
I have also been feeling really good about all of the accolades that have been coming my way. I feel really good about the project and have really appreciated all the nice things that people have said about it and me. Of course I haven't done it alone, without Yanis I wouldn't have even had the chance to work on this or the funding that made it all possible, without ChildCount and Matt we would have had to start from scratch which would have made things about 18 billion times harder, Moses, Dickson and Kevin were the ones who actually did the programming, and Komolo and Francis among others have been key during my visits to the field. Andy and Ben made me fight for only those parts of the system that really needed to be there and helped to make the system as streamlined as possible. The CHWs and MVP project in general are the reason we can implement and I wouldn't have wanted to have to try and do all the amazing strengthening of the systems that they have done over the last few years before I started on this project. So yeah, I know most of you have no idea who these people are, but they rock! I have never enjoyed such hard work as I have enjoyed these past few months, if any of you guys are reading, thank you so much!
On that note, we have been talking to people who think that this system would be perfect for a district or nation wide strengthening of PMTCT services, so this is really exciting, as well as talking to the Kenyan Department of health people and UNICEF Kenya, we have also had meetings with UNICEF Uganda about this program. It's exciting to see the work you have done getting people to think about what they could accomplish in their own backyards with the same systems. It's all open source, and the more people using it, the more mothers getting good antenatal care and the more kids born without HIV, so that is awesome. I'm working on a post for the childcount blog and a Powerpoint that really goes through the system and shows how it works, I'll post a link to the CC blog and to the Powerpoint when I'm done with them (which had best be tomorrow!) So, Monday it's looking like I'm going to try and get my phone (or better yet, borrow one on the correct network) to be a fake CHW phone on the test network and make an appointment for my test patient. Make sure that it is all working to plan and meet with the lab here which does dried blood spot testing for early infant diagnosis of HIV and I hope the lab in Yala. I'mgoing to sit down with the coordinator and say "sorry to be a pain in the ass, but I'm going to need to commandeer one of your cars for my last week, I have too much to do and too little time to do it in and I have to be going between meetings in Kisumu and meetings in Yala the next few days. If that doesn't work, than monday in Kisumu, Tuesday in Yala, then Wed, thurs and Fri, we are training 2 Health Centers a day (which sounded good at the time of the planning meeting but now has more than a passing resemblance to logistics hell). We have 10,000 ID cards being printed (I hope soon) and booklets which need to go out to the health centers and I need to talk to the OpenMRS guys to see if the data entry folk can put in the forms in Sauri. Anyway, yeah, it's gonna be busy! Also, my contract should finally come next week, we have a Claire's 1st birthday/going away party on Wed and Claire's actual first birthday on Thurs.! Yeah, were gonna need a little more caffine over here... Okay, we are off tomorrow to hike in the rainforest, somehow between everything else, I took a night off and build them a simple website. So, yay for free rainforest! Enjoy the pics, I may not label them... We'll see. I wish I had Goonies to give the orphans, though I totally hooked them up with Winnie the Pooh and The original Star Wars Trilogy as well as The Princess and the Frog... They are good kiddos,I hope this small thing can help distract them from the difficulties they have already begun to face and feel like a normal kid for a bit.
So, I'll try to write more, but as you can see I'm a bit scattered and have a lot on my plate!
No comments:
Post a Comment