The Blan Clown

Monday and Tuesday have passed uneventfully. In fact, I have spent a great deal of time trying to complete a paper I am writing! Monday I met with the Dr. I am going to do a project under. I read over some things and then began thinking about how to write this up. Basically I will be looking at retention rates of patients on HIV vaccine trials. As of now it is supposed to be qualitative in nature, but I am going to make it quantitative too by comparing different groups of retention rates (or at least this is my intention!).

Meanwhile, as things move somewhat slowly on the research front (difficult to do a qualitative study when you don’t know the language!), I am spending more and more time trying to learn the language. We are fortunate as English speakers because so many people are interested in speaking English. So there is never a shortage of people at work who wish to help me and speak with me. Much to their amusement, I am sure.

In other news, I went for a walk outside the compound with my roommate tonight. It was a short walk, but it was nice to be among the people and get out. In fact, it was refreshing to walk around as people stared at us but always responded very kindly to our “Bon swa” with a smile and “bon swa” back. It was a remarkably hilly walk, and we eventually walked next to a shanty town with kids everywhere. It was sad to see people living in those conditions, but remarkable how fun the kids were. Even though I still speak very little (m pale enpe), we ended up racing about 20 kids up this huge hill. My roommate then raced them again as I tried to talk some with a kid on the side of the road. When they were done they all migrated over to me and sat down. It was a bit weird because I had run out of stuff to say, so I looked around for something to do. Much to their delight I found some sticks and started juggling and acting stupid. Soon there was a huge applause at the end. So I kept doing stupid stuff and making them laugh. My roommate commented that I was like a clown. It was really fun. It actually made me feel a bit safer. Parents and older siblings were around, and they seemed pleased that this “blan” (similar to "gringo" in Mexico) was making their children happy. We eventually left and walked back as the sun went down. It was weird being out there “at night” but very refreshing at the same time. Most of these people are remarkably great, especially given the conditions.