Blowing grammar

Each day brings more suprises. We had a very productive day yesterday, inventory-ing and relabeling the samples. The process was slow and mildly painful, but we persevered and managed to finish. Upon nearly finishing, however, we realized we were nearly out of liquid nitrogen, which is essential for storing our samples, especially since there is electricity for maybe an hour or two a day. So one of the lab members is making an emergency trip to Lagos for more, hopefully saving the day.

Seeing the situation in this country has made me think a lot about the priviledge and opportunities we have had growing up in America. Christian says that only about 5% of the population here graduates from any kind of school, and maybe 25% attends school at all. I asked why he though that was - would more schools help? Maybe, he said, but the real problem was the lack of jobs when you finish. Why go to school if there is nothing to do when you're done? You might as well just start working immediately. Because of the corruption, the jobs rarely go to those who deserve them, so there is very little incentive to get an education.

This lead to a discussion of the corruption in the government. He told us how the politicians do not even try to campaign with educated people, instead going straight to villages and buying votes with bags of rice or similar things. Many people distrust the educated, and when someone with too much education runs for office, people say he is just "blowing grammar." It's a shame, though we can't really judge, since America has anti-intellectual elements of its own.

Anyways, we are off to lab again now, to continue organizing the collections and working with the members of Christian's lab to get everyone on the same page with our data collection system. Kristian will also give a talk to the department today. And everyone cross your fingers our liquid nitrogen arrives!

Days 1-3

After spending the weekend in the air or in the car, we have finally arrived at our first destination of interest, Christian Happi’s lab at the College of Medicine, Irrua University. We have been staying at guesthouses operated by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, which on the whole has treated us very well.

On our way to Ibadan we experienced one of the many pleasures of domestic road travel. At an instant, our north-bound highway lane turned southbound. We joined in the mass reversal, turning around in the middle of the highway to find ourselves sandwiched between traffic going in every possible direction. In the end we took smaller dirt village roads. The detour ended up carving a 4-car wide swatch of belching automobiles where an hour earlier kids had been playing and goats resting.

Christian was kind enough to welcome us into his home, where we spent a good deal of time playing with his adorable daughter, dining on Nigerian delicacies, and planning the week.

Our current home at the IITA campus is at odds with the local environment. Outside of the gates are poverty, congestion and environmental wreckage, while just inside is a campus that feels plucked out of Florida or California. Some of us are having trouble reconciling the contrast.

This morning I had the unfortunate pleasure of becoming sick, and introducing myself to a Nigerian street market as I hurled myself out of Christian’s car just in time to avoid ‘being sick’ in his back seat. I can say now that I have partaken in the Nigerian Health care system; my doctor said it was the food, gave me a handful of medicines, and instructions to rest. He used a really nifty little thermometer strip made by 3M which turns dots colors to identify body temperature.

On our way to bring me home to rest we took a detour and were summarily harassed by the police carrying multicolored rifles who kept us roadside for 30 minutes, coming up with every reason Christian should hand him a ‘dash’ (bribe). The situation finally ended when the big boss came and a larger financial opportunity presented itself!

I have recovered now and look forward to getting into the lab where Kristian and Shari have been learning about our samples. I’d like to get started with an inventory tonight so that no time has been wasted, and tomorrow we can start processing some specimens.

All in all a good time so far, many lessons learned, and only anticipation for tomorrow.

Many, many flights!

The booking and planning is done, and we are almost ready to go. As I walked down the hall here at the Northwest Lab, I saw a world map, and thought would our trip might look like plotted out. It's not totally ridiculous, but still A LOT of travel in 3-5 weeks!

It's 19,906 miles for me! That's only 5K less than the circumference of the earth... and no frequent flier miles!

Hello World!

We are about to embark on our first lab voyage to our field site in Irrua, Nigeria, where we have been quickly building a Lassa diagnostic, treatment and research center.

Our collaborator, and main man in Nigeria, Christian Happi will open is lab and his home to Kristian Andersen, or first bio-lab experienced post-doc, and Shari Grossman, research assistant, and mathematician extraordinaire and me, the project manager. We will be joined later by geneticist post-doc Elinor Karlsson.

This is where we will share our adventure with the world (mostly our parents) so please check in every once in a while for videos, pictures and , hopefully, exciting stories.