Thursday picture

ah yes.. we did take this boat out to snorkel

This is a traditional boat in Zanzibar called a dhow. It looks a lot more trustworthy when it’s not low tide and when you actually attach the sail to the boat. It’s surprisingly deep inside and sturdy. After the captain gave the boat a facelift with some cotton shoved into cracks, we were ready to set sail. It was a gorgeous boat ride, about a half hour or 45 minutes out to just before the point where the waves break on the other side of the reef. The snorkeling was beautiful. July 6 2009.

 

Wednesday – Picture of the day

Since today is our 2 year wedding anniversary, here’s a pic of us – at the top of 236 Hurumzi having sundowners in Stone Town, Zanzibar July 4th.

Sundowners in Stone Town

 

Pic of the Day – Tuesday

Already a day behind.. but at least I remembered. This is us making bagels in Lusaka. It’s very exciting to have a good bagel here – we’ve started having bagel brunches about every 2-3 weeks with different groups of friends.

Making bagels in Lusaka

 

Picture a day

In an attempt to add a little life back to the blog, I’m going to try and post a picture each day this week from our last few months. Here’s Micha at a fundraiser he helped organize for the Peace Clubs where he is a volunteer. The Peace Clubs set up clubs in Lusaka schools and train kids and teachers ways they can deal with violence and conflict that they experience in their lives.

Fundraiser for Peace Clubs group

 

Photos up

Photos from our trip with K’s mom and sisters are now up on picasa..

 

New photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/knittinginboston

I’m apparently inept at posting a link in the sidebar – so there’s new photos up on our site – for Dec and Feb and March.. For some reason there wasn’t that much going on in Jan.. we got money stolen and i knit some and i then photographed all my jewelry here in case any of it gets stolen – but I wrote about all that already. See the captions on the photos for some more info on what we’ve been up to..

 

$300 stolen and some knitting

Last night around 10pm we realized $300 USD was stolen from our house – sometime between January 6 and now. We’ve had some people over and then there is our caretaker who comes 3 times a week.  It seems the two options are someone stole it the day of Obama’s inauguration or it was the caretaker.  Both options tear me apart.  We’re feeling a little better today but there were lots of tears on my part last night.  We had that money as emergency funds and brought it back with us from the states.  Anyone who took it probably needs it more than we do, but the whole situation sucks.  Our caretaker came this morning and we spoke with him and said we just needed some time to figure out what to do.  So today I’m going to buy a safe.  While I don’t think that actually makes a huge difference, it may help a little and we will have to be more vigilant.  and lock all our room doors if we have people over.  exactly the opposite of what is natural for M and I.  In case anyone is wondering, no there is not a lot of money or valuables in our house.. but anything can be a temptation.  Our caretaker worked for a friend of ours for at least 3 years before we got here and nothing like this ever happened.  Circumstances can change, but I really still want to support him and his family.  We will be more vigilant and not leave him alone in the house at least for a while, but I will trust him more than any other stranger who we would hire instead.  Anyway, I wasn’t planning on writing this much and I haven’t expressed my thoughts that clearly.. but whatever.  it was a late night and an early morning and here we are, trying to turn the day around.

I’ve been doing lots of knitting lately.  We came back from the states with this large blanket I’m working on for a friend.  That got put aside to knit two hats for our friends in London and try to get them the hats before it got warm and one of them was about to move.  We had bought the yarn together when we visited them – beautiful alpaca, my favorite fiber to knit with.  I made one hat, was working leisurely and then realized I had 3 days before a friend was heading back to the states.  If the hats didn’t go with her, I’m not sure when I could get them to London.  So I finished the first hat (blue one) and then knit the second one in just over a day.  My friend shipped them from Boston to London for us (which was about 50 dollars cheaper than trying to ship them from here).

It looks grey, but it’s really a beautiful light blue grey.

I just love the large brown button.  The person I made this for gave me 5 buttons cause we couldn’t decide which to use.  I had plenty of angst because I think they preferred a different button but I wanted this one.  I also had a lot of knitting angst because we measured her head with a piece of string which I knotted off and attached the buttons to.  We then put another knot in the string to measure the radius of her head – because she has a smaller head and doesn’t like hats that come down too far on her head.  It would be one thing if we were on the same continent, but I just had to try and remember which measurement was which and go with it.  I also have gotten into a bad habit of taking knitting pictures at night when the lighting is pretty awful, just because that’s when I do most of my knitting and finishing objects.

After the hat frenzy, I realized I had bought yarn for a friend’s baby and she was due to have the baby in a month.  There was another traveler coming from my office, so I thought maybe I could finish the sweater before they left and have them carry it back to Boston for me.  Well, turns out that was a little ambitious.  I’m also really just enjoying this pattern and didn’t want to rush.  So here’s a snapshot of what’s in the works:

I love the pattern on the lower half.  It’s supposed to be a sweater dress and I’ll finish the shoulders, neckline, and add two ties in the front after finishing the bottom part.

In not so good knitting news, I bought this yarn I was really excited about – hand dyed sock yarn and the color was called Gryffindor (maroons and gold).  I didn’t realize how quickly the color pattern would change and really did not like the colors after I started knitting.  I got part way on this sock and then ripped the whole thing out.  I’m now wondering if I’ll ever find anything to do with the yarn that I like – suggestions welcome..

I definitely won’t try to use the yarn with pattern like i did on the top of this sock, it needs just plain stockinette stich at least, like the bottom of the foot.

Time to get dressed and buy a safe and then do lots of work before I head out of town on Monday – may not have any internet access while I’m out and have a few deadlines to meet before I go.

 

Grassroots Development Thoughts (MJ)

Its been a bit of time since I wrote last, and things are starting to fill up in my schedule! I want to talk a bit about the two groups that I’m volunteering with.

1) Peace Education and Training is a small group of people trying to create and run peace clubs in some of the schools in Lusaka. They train teachers (who they call leaders) in these schools to help students learn the skills they need to combat everything from school absenteeism to child abuse and domestic violence. Needless to say, violence against children is a major issue in Zambia and, like in the US, is widespread and widely underreported. I’ve been asked to be their “General Secretary” and “Accountant”, meaning that I take and keep notes from their meetings (as the one with the lap top) and I collect and record receipts for their expenses and income. The organization is coordinated by Issa, who I previously wrote about. It runs on a budget of less than $5,000 a year, mostly funded by the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). This budget can go far since the organization is entirely volunteer run. I am the only white person and the only Westerner/ Northerner in the organization, as far as I know. Most of my work with them so far has been meeting with Issa to plan for expansion and to define my role in the organization. Now that my role has been defined, and the funding for this year is soon to arrive (March), I expect to see a little more of the operations of the group.

2) The other organization that I just started volunteering with (as of last Tuesday), is the Lubuto Library Project. This project builds, and runs programs in libraries geared to serve street children, orphans, and other vulnerable children. They currently have one library in operation and two under construction, with plans to expand across the country. There are a large number of vulnerable children in Zambia due at least in part to the devastation that HIV/AIDS has wreaked on Zambians of parenting age. I have been asked to help evolve their financial management systems to accommodate their expanding programs. According to their 2007 annual report and website (lubuto.org), Lubuto has a budget of around $200,000, with widespread foundation support, a board based in the US, and an advisory committee based both in Zambia and the US. I am looking forward to learning more about the roots of Lubuto- and how it developed this complex web of Zambian and non-Zambian supporters.

There’s a clear contrast between these two organizations that are both doing extremely important work in Zambia. One (Peace Education and Training), has a tiny budget, and, from what I have seen, is entirely run by Zambian volunteers, with minimal support, for now, from Westerners. The other, Lubuto, has a more extensive budget (though I’m sure it could do more work with more funding) and involvement by a large number of Americans and others from the Global North. While I’m far from fully understanding this contrast, I think it has potential for some interesting insight into NGO (non-governmental organization) development work, and especially start-up development work. Here are a couple things I’ve been starting to think about: I generally assume that local people tend to understand their own needs better than outsiders. In a poor-country context, outsiders tend to have more access to resources than local people. How can you effectively marry the two to maximize development potential? I am also curious if an ultimate goal of all development projects to scale up in budget and impact, which would allow you to move towards professional staff and away from an all volunteer collective. Alternatively, is there benefit and flexibility gained from remaining a small independent project? I am looking forward to learning more about these organizations and their differing situations!

On an unrelated note, last week we had a small gathering of mostly Americans and Zambians to watch and celebrate Obama’s inauguration. It was a lot of fun, and we cooked Macaroni and Cheese, Apple Crisp, and Sweet Iced Tea to give it that good old American feeling, here under the African sun. Yummy!

Finally, I started running on the treadmill at our housing development. I am one of the frisbee players with the least stamina, so I thought I’d “train”. Been doing it for about two weeks, so we’ll see how it goes. Last week I was doing 3 sets of 5 minutes of fast walking (6.5 km/hr) followed by 2 minutes of jogging (10 km/hr), and then a 5 minute cool off at the end. I’m hoping to build up to 25-30 minutes of jogging in the next couple months. That’s been one benefit of having too much time on my hands- more than enough time to exercise.

 

Kidney Update #1 – and some knitting

I started this over two weeks ago and am finally trying to finish writing. I think I got a little lost in my thoughts and was unwilling to put more information out there.

When we were home in the states a few weeks ago I went for my first follow up appointment since being diagnosed with PKD. Every three months I’ll go to get blood work drawn and pee in a cup.

My labs-

There are three things my doctor and I are watching (for now). Creatinine, blood pressure , and protein in my urine. Basically you want all of these to be low. You also look at the Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR) which you want to be high and is calculated based on your creatinine levels, age, and body size. It tells you how well your kidneys are filtering out the things they are supposed to get rid of. How’s that for a lay person’s interpretation?

My creatinine has been rising. Which is not good. Based on that the doctor estimates that in the last 6 months my GFR has gone from 63 to 56 and she says I’ve lost about 6-10% of my kidney function in the last 6 months. The doctor said this wasn’t that bad and nothing to be very concerned about. But then when you think about it, there are only so many times you can lose 6-10% of your function before there’s nothing left. Reading some info from the National Kidney Foundation I think my GFR means I am stage 3 kidney failure out of 5 stages. That wasn’t fun to see on paper, but I don’t have any side effects of the PKD except for high blood pressure, which is well controlled now with 10mg amplodipene. Mostly for my record, here’s all my labs:

Creatinine Estimated GFR Protein in Urine

(total protein to creatinine ratio)

June 11 2008 1.09 63 ?

August 29, 2008 1.12 ? ?

December 22, 2008 1.2 56 .18

Normal total protein to creatinine ratio is <.15, so mine is high. When it gets closer to .5 and 1 is apparently when we start to be concerned. Some labs do fluctuate with hydration status and since I was on a long flight the day before these labs, there’s this small hope inside of me that my creatinine didn’t actually go up that much. But I thought I was pretty hydrated that day so who knows. For the GFR, some people start to feel effects of the disease when it gets down to around 30 and I believe 15 is when you can get put on the transplant waiting list. I’ve had a lot of thoughts swirling around my head regarding dialysis, thinking about all the needles involved if I need dialysis and do hemodialysis instead of peritoneal dialysis. I’ve been doing a lot more online research also about kidney transplants – living donor versus a deceased donor; people’s experiences waiting for a transplant. All this is hopefully far off for me but I am trying to understand more about what this disease could mean for me and put it into the context of my life.

While my blood pressure at home is usually in the 120s over 70s, it was 120 something over 60 the day I was at the doctor’s. I’ve only taken it once since being back in Zambia but I should really start taking it more often again.

M and I went through various roller coasters of emotion after my last check-up. We each changed what we were thinking every day or every three days and often our thoughts actually matched up with each other which was an added bonus and comfort. I flip flopped so much in those two weeks while we were home and our first week or so back here. A lot of thoughts related to the pregnancy implications of this disease. My doctor basically told me that if I wanted to be pregnant, now’s the time. She wasn’t worried about pregnancy negatively affecting my kidney function (which was very different from what I heard my first doctor’s visit) but the concern would just be that the pregnancy would be high risk. Well, if we really do want to have kids by me getting pregnant, now doesn’t really work for us. I can’t have a high risk pregnancy here and we’re staying at least through September. As each year goes by and depending on what my kidney function does, my doctor’s recommendation that pregnancy would be okay is likely to change. As the thoughts of possible renal failure down the road milled in our heads, we both flip flopped on whether we felt we could also raise a child and take care of both of our individual needs. I know that if this was something we really wanted to do, my family would support me and help us through but for now we’re feeling like we just can’t make that decision for sure. Our thoughts have then turned more to maybe being foster parents for a while and maybe adopting. It’s a really complex mix of feeling like you have to make decisions sooner than you normally would and also realizing you don’t have to make all the decisions today. We like to be prepared. That’s just part of each of us and we don’t quite know what that means right now to be prepared. We’re starting to learn all the possible things my PDK progression could mean. People like to say reassuring things like you don’t have to make all these decisions or even think about all these things at once, but it’s okay – we’re thinking about them. I’m thinking about them. I need to think about them. And I need to struggle with what it means for me to suddenly no longer have choices that I thought would be mine to make for years to come. Whether or not you deal with a chronic disease, I think lots of people grow up and at some point realize their choices are less than they once were. Some part of me feels like that’s maybe just a part of growing up. The pace for me has become quicker but there are certainly so many people who have had to face these same things at a much earlier age than I.

Since it’s been so long since I started this post, I can’t really remember the other things I wanted to write. I know I wanted to share a little knitting. And I’ll also say that I’m really enjoying my work here. We’re starting to build our team and begin a new phase of work and actually give some real solid time to planning. Planning during a busy job is one of those things that I’ve dreamed of for at least 3 years now. It’s very satisfying. And the Research Assistant on my team loves planning and we’re both learning Microsoft Project together right now as we build our workplan. When we were setting up our most recent appointment to continue planning he said, “Yea I was wondering when we could continue with that. Because after all, ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail’”. I think that will be going up on our new office wall once we move into the new office.

And now for some knitting. I was SOO excited that we had extra space in our bag to fit this blanket that’s in progress for a friend and all the yarn it will take to complete it. I worked on it before we left in Sept and then again when we were home in December. I was so sad at the thought of having to put it in storage for at least 9 months. Yea! I’ve done at least another foot or two since we got here and hope to finish it soon so I can move onto 2 hats that are slowly in progress for some other friends.

For some reason I cannot get the spaces between paragraphs back – I’ve tried at least three times.  Apologies for the ‘one big paragraph’ look..

 

Musings on PKD, Spiders, and more (MJ)

1) PKD stinks (see K’s earlier post “An Open Book” for background on PKD and some of our early thoughts on it). PKD leads to a loss of kidney function (which stinks), often leading to feeling ill (which stinks a lot) and needing dialysis (which stinks a whole stinking lot), while waiting for a kidney transplant (which stinks, but seems to be relatively a big relief when compared to the previous stank). I just finished a marathon couple days reading the back history of Nathan, who lives with PKD, was on dialysis, and had a kidney transplant two years ago. Nathan’s blog (nmccart.blogspot.com) did a lot to inform me on the details of dialysis and transplants based on his experience, so if you (like me) have been scared by the unknown that these things bring, check out his blog. PKD still stinks, but I feel a lot better having more information about what life with PKD might look like- knowledge is power, and all that.

While dialysis (at least in my reading of Nathan’s experience) really inhibited his day-to-day life, he’s now almost two years with his transplanted kidney and is working full-time, taking vacations, and generally back to his normal life. There are many more blogs and websites about kidney disease and PKD, so I’m looking forward to more reading- especially since his experience is only one of many (600,000 people in the US alone have PKD). We also have gotten some books on surviving life-long illness and kidney disease. While I’d guess that any diagnosis of PKD is undesirable, at least we got this one early enough that we will be well informed and networked long before it impacts our day-to-day life. Maybe, if we’re lucky, organizations like the PKD Foundation (www.pkdcure.org) will make progress in treating PKD before K’s kidneys fail. Wouldn’t that be nice?

K will be writing a separate post soon about her last doctor’s appointment that she had while we were back in the states.

2) Spiders- Ewww or Awww? In general, I appreciate spiders, especially smaller ones that aren’t poisonous and scary. Living in a malarial country, I support anything that kills mosquitoes. But I may have reached my limit. We have had wall spiders in our house since moving in here. They are common, and commonly known to both ignore humans and to eat mosquitoes, though how a spider that doesn’t spin a web catches a mosquito boggles my mind. Wall spiders are a brownish-blackish color and tend to be flat. They don’t move too much, unless they are surprised.

There is one spider in particular that’s made a home out of our closet. It’s a big one, for a wall spider, maybe 2 inches in diameter. Unfortunately, once before our trip to the US and once since returning, we found spider egg sacs stuck in a corner of our room. Yuck! I do like spiders, but the idea of hundreds of small spiders around our room disgusts me. So it might be time for this one to go. K gave one valiant attempt to kill it this morning but failed cause it moves so fast and she didn’t have nerve to try again.

3) Gaza-Israel? Oy Vey Galore! I don’t really want to focus much on it here- there is a lot to say and a lot of other people saying it. I’m also sure many readers of the blog have very varying views, and I doubt that too much productive discussion can happen with blog comments. But it is a big deal, so here are my two hopes: 1) that a ceasefire will commence immediately so that humanitarian aid can get into Gaza and 2) that this episode will finally mobilize the international support needed to make a longer-lasting peaceful resolution to conflict (though what that resolution looks like or how it will come about isn’t clear to me…).

4) I am optimistic that I may be starting work on a contract in the next week or two. While I did miss playing the computer game ‘Civilization 3′ during our vacation (hmmm… not that much), I don’t feel a big need to play all the time. Plus the extra income and use of my brain will be a nice change!

I think that’s about it for now.