The entire monitoring and evaluation system is a mess. They are using individual excel documents for all their data. All of it. So I am trying to teach the local staff to convert all their tables into an access database. I would like to use a fancier DB system but access is all they have access too (ha ha). Besides all this computer work we have just completed the training period for the improved cookstove study and Monday will be the start of data collection. There is a large CDC group coming in July to implement the second phase of the study so hopefully I can present them with relevant data and impress them into giving me a job when I graduate. I have also started analysis on the antibacterial hand towel study. The enumerators are asked to report their observations of the villages they visit and my PI is hoping that their data demonstrates a predictive value for the actual condition of health behaviors and outcomes. This would reinforce the data that is being "objectively" collected. The cool thing is that this study is funded and run by the CDC so watch out for my name in a CDC report in the near future. 

I have started brainstorming ideas for a personal project. I want to measure the total impact a NGO has upon the local area including the unseen effect not captured in traditional reports. The difficulty is in capturing the full extent of social networking. I plan on tracing unique products and monitoring health behaviors/outcomes in villages. I'm thinking about comparing baseline surveys with data from all the projects I have access too. The good thing is that all the CDC folk here in Kisumu have offered to help me in my project. Apparently there has not been a lot of research in this particular area. Their expertise will help make my project publishable. Getting funding for a PhD will be a lot easier with several publications under my belt. 

The local meat of choice is goat and they usually prepare it in a stew that is quite tasty. However the locals like eating a maize flour dish called ugali. It has the consistency of rice cake but tastes like nothing. I find it unappealing but the locals seem to love it. I am so glad that rice is readily available here. The guys from the office are taking me to eat some local fish from the lake tomorrow. Their idea of a restaurant is fishing poles and asking women from a nearby house to cook our catch.