The meandering interviewer

For the last three days I have been going out to do interviews. Wait. It is more accurate to say that I have been going out to try to do interviews. There hasn't been an avalanche of information, if you get my drift. 3 days 5 interviews. To be honest it is about what I expected. Data collection is a slow, difficult process. Out of the 172 cases that I have (identified by the Ministry of Health) 51 had addresses. Those 51 don't always have complete addresses of course. Several are a street with just the block number. Others list there address as A.H. Vate Manrique. Luckily A.H. Vate Manrique is on my map. Unluckily it seems to indicate an entire neighborhood of the city. I have been told that it stands for Asociacion Humano - I won't insult your intelligence this time, I'm pretty sure you can figure out the translation. I can only guess how many people are a part of this association. Also sometimes people put down an address that doesn't exist. Or they put down the address of someplace where people don't live (my favorites so far: medical center and apostolic church). I don't think this is any more difficult than tracking down migrant farm workers in Traverse City, but at least then I didn't have to walk everywhere. Today my dogs were barking pretty bad so I thought it would be a good idea to sit down, put my feet up, and catch up on some paperwork. I went into this park and sat on a bench. I was immediately surrounded by 10 kids. They were all boys with ages ranging from 5-12. They were completely fascinated by me and stayed even if I wasn't talking to them. After talking to the boys for a minute about 10 more girls showed up. They didn't stay long as I think they were bored with me. All of the kids wanted to show me how they could count to 5 in English. Which they did over, and over, and over. One kid, the oldest but quieter than the rest, asked me if I was a missionary. He seemed almost nervous when he asked. After almost laughing out loud I assured him that I was not, in fact, a missionary. When I told them I was asking questions about Dengue half of them said that they had it before. I don't know this for a fact, but I have a pretty good feeling that the number of reported Dengue cases is hugely different from the number of actual cases. It would be interesting to go around and ask every person in Chulucanas if they had experienced symptoms of Dengue Fever this year and then take a blood sample to check for recent infection, just to see if the Ministry's data is anywhere near accurate. My guess is that it wouldn't even be close. But that's life and I have to worry about the problem at hand. Like how to find people when they don't give their address.

All work and no play makes Ryan something something

There is something to be said for being a tourist. I know, I know its better to be immersed in the culture and you can't really do that with a fanny pack and a camera. You stick out, and people treat you like a tourist. But, on the other hand, there is almost always hot water and good food. For the last 10 days I traveled around the country with friends and family and we were all gringos. I have to tell you, for the most part I really enjoyed it. Cab drivers took us for all we were worth and sometimes they tried to kill us (or our luggage). But other than that I had a really good time. Honestly, I've never had so many scary cab rides in my life. There was the guy driving 100+ km/hr in the mountains, playing chicken with tour buses and passing on blind curves. There was the tiny Daewoo hatchback that tried to pile all of our luggage on the roof only to have one bag slide off and another nearly take of the passenger side mirror about halfway through the trip. There was also the guy in a car that looked and sounded like it was held together by duct tape who coasted into the gas station on fumes and then pulled into oncoming traffic to try to make a left turn. But all that was good fun. Machu Picchu is breathtaking, indescribable, too impressive for words. Cusco is exciting, has a great night life and an amazing history. Lima is still overcast and dreary, but does have one of the most unique malls I've ever seen (on the ocean, and yes there was a Hooters there). The sand dunes and oasis at Ica were beautiful and the wine and pisco were delicious. In short I had a great time - probably due to the company as much as anything. I'll try to put some pictures up sometime soon. I took way too many to put on here. I'm back in Chulucanas with some good news. My study has been approved. I'm not sure when I'll start data collection, probably on Monday or early next week. I think it will be sort of tough (read: impossible) to finish up 300 interviews in 2 weeks or so, but that is life. I'll get as many as I can. Also I'm coming home a few days early so that is good. I'm ready to come home. I'm sure the last few weeks will fly by and I'll miss it and wish I'd had more time but right now I just want to be back in the states.