What happened to March?

Wow, again it's been a long time since I last posted. The past few weeks have been quite busy for me at work, as we've been analyzing data and preparing abstracts for a couple of conferences and I prepared and delivered a training on a software package. Since I didn't know the software myself six weeks ago, there was a lot of learning going on before figuring out what to teach. That training took place last Thursday and Friday and went well, although both the Country Director and myself are wondering how much will 'stick', because the staff will only be using the software occaisonally. I gave 'homework' for everyone to have an opportunity to practice their new skills, but I'm not sure that I'll receive many completed assignments back.

The big news now is that tomorrow I'm headed to a place just south of Kulyab, near the Afghan border, where a large proportion of the 6,000 villagers have tuberculosis. A nearby village with a similar problem was highlighted in a BBC article/video last year (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7773139.stm). Project HOPE wants to determine how much multi-drug resistant tuberculosis is there, and I'll be testing out my questionnaire for my own, smaller project.

I hope to take lots of pictures while I'm there (if local people are okay with that), so I hope soon you'll be able to get a sense of what life is like in a Tajik village, and perhaps how TB is affecting individuals and society.