Days of Summer

I should be studying for finals.

Ehh...I should actually be studying for the GRE.

Not like my whole life of school and career is on the line or anything? All resting on this one dumb 4 1/2 hour test? That is in a week? Well shoot...

But Jonathan is gone at a final, the house is clean*, I made dinner**, and I can't find another distraction...which brought me to the revival of the blog. The distraction of ALL distractions.

*rare
**really, really rare

And thus we see. I am blogging.

Where better to begin?

the. summer. of. all. summers.

March- Engaged
April- Pick a dress, engagement pictures, get all addresses, last minute trip to Cali, say goodbye to Jonathan
May- Bridals, fly to Africa
June- Africa
July- Africa
August- Africa, fly home, see Jonathan, bridals, wedding, honeymoon, school.

Yep. that happened. And i'd like you all to notice that "plan a wedding" was no where in that list. I can thank my Mom and Sister for any and all things that were at that wedding. Other than Jonathan,  the rest was picked by my talented mom and sister.

So, let the unload of summer pictures begin!

Where better to start?

Down in AFRICA!


The place: Uganda

My crew:

The Cause: Put Solar power in maternity wards of health centers like this

In order to deliver babies like this

Now that i'm home I can sort of explain what we did there. It's one of those things that is hard for me to explain. But here I go...

Last December 2 non-profit organizations joined together to install solar power into maternity wards in Uganda. We Care Solar has created a "Solar Suitcase" that is made specifically for maternity wards, and Safe Mothers, Safe Babies has good relationships with people in villages in Uganda. So they paired up and installed about 20 of these Solar Suitcases into rural health centers and hospitals.

Us three students were sent there to evaluate that project. And not only that- we were supposed to evaluate our evaluation methods. You follow?

So we went to see how these Solar Suitcases were changing things for the health centers. Were more mothers delivering there because there was light now? Was there less maternal and infant deaths now that they have light to deliver the babies? Was there no influence at all? In addition, what is the best way to measure this stuff? Do interview work? Surveys? Etc?

So that was the cause. 3 months of interviews with health care staff that practically don't speak english, traveling between 10 health centers, seeing the births and c-sections of far too many babies, and trying to survive in a place far, far from home.


So with that- let the summer of all summer posts begin!