Cold Spaghetti

Today I met with Valerie, my faculty advisor and future committee member. Valerie was born and raised in Lima, educated in the U.S., and is a faculty member at Tulane working in Lima as an adjuct on several projects. She was very sick yesterday, so I met her at her flat in Barranco this afternoon.

Barranco is the neighborhood just south of Miraflores. Normally, it would be about a 30 minute walk along a precipice that divides the neighborhoods and ends at the coast. Although my walk started out that way, once I crossed el freno into Barranco, I got lost. It was great fun asking directions at each corner — and equally fun exploring as every person told a different story and gave a different direction for where I would find “Calle Carlos Zegarra.” Finally, I asked a woman walking with her son — she and I immediately clicked (she was very curious about my pregnancy and vowed to help me to the end) and joined me in a 8-10 block search until we found our destination. Overall, the trip was a great walk and lasted well over an hour.

The meeting with Valerie went great. We are in similar minds about a lot of things, including our expectations (i.e.: no grand expectations for monumental findings, but grand expectations for productive work). My plan for the next few days is to start arranging appointments with a variety of NGOs in the area and with a woman whom she recommended as an assistant. The idea is to start getting an idea about how health systems in Lima work (particularly in regards to women’s health services and programs related to issues of violence) and to start exploring the pobres jovenes, or shantytowns, that line the edges of the city. Eventually, I will graduate to informal interviews in these communities once I have a better idea of what I want to ask. Previous DHS-based research from last year (looking at low birth weight and violence) has given me a sense of how “science” is defining these issues and I’m curious to see how things “on the ground” compare. I’ll also volunteer with some of her colleagues at a local NGO assisting with a variety of academic papers that they are trying to publish (look over data analysis and help with presentation of the papers in english). This will provide a more established network and give the option of office space. There are also two folks doing research along my areas of interest here that Valerie has hooked me up with — so it will be great to have some colleagues with which to trade ideas/survey tools/contacts.

Step one we’ll face tomorrow: finding where we can rent a cell phone!! (Vonage is pretty crappy for local calls.)

Other “to do” items for tomorrow: finding another grocery store and getting household supplies (storage containers, clips, laundry detergent, etc.) and finding a good everyday shoulder bag for me to use.

No big birthday dinner tonight. Paul’s stomache is still giving him trouble and kept him uncomfortable most of the day, so he worked and rested. I came back from my meeting with Valerie (with an impressive sunburn and farmer’s tan), watched Will, and sent Josefina home early to enjoy the holiday with her family. For dinner, we walked around the corner for pasta plates and brought home some cake to share. We watched “Life of David Gale,” a movie I’ve wanted to see for awhile, and snacked. (The family who lives here have an incredible collection of movies and great taste, so hopefully we will do more movie watching while we are here!)

Happy Birthday to me!