One month down, two to go

Wow, it has already been a month. Time flies! Two months left to find out if I want and can stay here for a PhD. Actually one month; I’ve set a deadline for myself. Because IF I am going to do a PhD here I need to prepare for that. Actually I already am. I already know what prices to expect for housing and monthly costs for shopping/food. Housing is much cheaper than the Netherlands, but usually without gas (cause you have to buy a big flask yourself), and without warm water. There are frequent power cuts. Going out for food is also cheaper, but buying food at supermarkets is about the same price as the Netherlands I think. You need a taxi to go anywhere. Or buy a car, which is actually not a bad idea at all if you stay here for a longer time.

What I found out so far: there are many projects happening here, and they are all interesting. There is the malaria trial I am a part of, looking at the vaccine effectivity. There is also a vaccine study going on for Ebola and Hookworm. There are several studies looking into drug resistance and reinfection regarding malaria, and also drug resistance for tuberculosis. And there is a study looking at the efficacy of vaccines in children born to mothers who were infected with intestinal worms. I also found out that, if I want to work with the participants, it cannot be in a clinical trial setting. It has to be a clinical study. The difference between a clinical trial and a clinical study is that a trial involves and intervention, like a new vaccine or a new treatment, while a clinical study is either an observation or the treatment given in the study is similar to what would otherwise happen in the hospital (so no new drugs/vaccines). Since I don’t have a medical background I cannot be involved with participants in a clinical trial; in such a trial my skills can be of use in the lab. But to be honest; I didn’t come here to only work in the lab. Many samples are sent to Europe (NL, Germany, Austria, US) for further analysis. That means I could work on the same samples at home as well, so I don’t really see the point in doing that. That means I have to find out if and in which ways I can be involved with participants beside my work in the lab.

Apart from finding out more about ongoing and future studies I am now ready for the competence tests for both the malaria microscopy and the PBMC isolation in the lab. Once I pass those ‘exams’ I can work on real samples from the studies here. And it’s about time, cause the project I am working for is getting started on the 6^th of September. From then onwards we will have samples from all participants (50 of them) every day. That means we will have a lot to process. Blood, urine and stool, and a lot of microscopy too. One more important thing I found out is that you don’t get to plan your day as a laboratory researcher. When the samples come in they need to be processed. That means if you are hungry and want to go for lunch, but there are samples, your lunch will have to wait (or you have to eat really quick). That also means if you thought your work was done at 6pm, and new samples arrive, your working day was not finished after all. The workload completely depends on how many trials are running at the same time, how many participants are enrolled, how many tubes of blood is taken per participant, and how many follow up visits there are, etc. If I decide to do a PhD here, that means that I will be working in the lab for all the other studies as well. I wonder how efficient that will be for my own project, because time that I would otherwise spend on literature research, data analysis, interesting courses/seminars in line with my own project is going to be spend on sample processing for other studies. For some people here that doesn’t matter, because they have a job here as a doctor and do their PhD on the side. The PhD will be the most important thing for me, and I can imagine it will be very frustrating when I have to do other things instead. So yes,.. things to think about. Let’s see how much I will enjoy the next few weeks when my work in the lab will also start.

So far the work related stuff. Two weeks ago I did some interesting cooking. People still give me complements now and ask for the recipe. I made paneer (Indian cheese), and prepared something that looked like paneer butter masala, but probably tasted very different, because I don’t have the spices here. But it was very tasty anyway :D. I made it for Mirjam’s farewell party. Afterwards we went to the beach again, now that there is still a beach. When the rainy season starts it will be gone soon. We sat by the fire and sang songs while one of the guys (Ghyslain or Hannes) played guitar. It was amazing.

Making paneer with Mirjam & Anita

Proud paneer makers!

It wasn't Indian anymore, but it was good anyway 

Enjoying the food and the music

Music at the beach

This is just awesome :)

On Monday it was liberation day. The 55^th apparently. We went to the island to see the parade. I’ve never seen such an unorganised parade before. There were army guys standing in lines that were not really lines. They were also not standing very straight or playing with the kids. When the marching started they did look organised, but still not very disciplined. They marched in different formations in front of the governor, but since I’m not very tall I missed all of that. There were also other groups of people marching, who were all wearing the same clothes. After the parade we went to the bakery in Isaac, where we had croissants and orange juice. The rest of the day was very lazy, as well as the next day, which was also a day off. That day Mirjam left, after working here for 1 year. We all had lunch together and waited for her taxi to come (1.5 hours late). Once she left it felt a bit strange. I guess this is gonna happen all year round, because people arrive any time of the year, so their departures are also like that. Even though it’s been only 3 weeks with Mirjam she was really a part of the group, and it feels kind of empty when someone leaves.

Luzia, Anita, Solveig and Wiebke in the back of the car
on our way to the Independence day festivities 

Marching at the parade

Saying good bye to Mirjam

I went shopping this week. For clothes, but not the usual way. Luzia and me bought fabrics and then went to the tailor, who will make us custom made pants and a dress. I hope it’s gonna come out well. People here go to tailors quite often, especially for weddings. It is the tradition that the bride and her friends/family all wear clothes with the same pattern, and the groom and his friends/family wear clothes with another pattern. Halfway through the ceremony the bride changes her clothes to the groom’s pattern, when she’s a part of their family. There are sooo many different patterns. Most of them very colourful with many tiny figures on them. I picked a blue fabric with leafs for the pants and a green/pink fabric with wave structures for the dress.

So much to choose from!

I am really getting a bit tired of guys wanting stuff from me. I have learned that guys here don’t have female friends, unless more is going on between them. A few times I thought I could have a normal conversation with a guy. I am already happy when they speak a bit better English, because my French is definitely improving, but still not good enough. Sooner or later, any conversation with a guy will always lead to ‘can I have your phone number’ ‘you are very pretty’ ‘are you married?’ ‘do you have children?’ or ‘do you want to be my girlfriend?’. And they just don’t seem to understand ‘I am not interested’ ‘I am in a relationship’ ‘I am faithful to my boyfriend/husband (even exaggerating doesn't help) at home’. They will say ‘but he is far away; don’t you have needs?’ ‘how do you know he is faithful too?’ or even ‘he will never know’. There are 2 guys in my team who are trying to get close to me (sometimes even literally; they are so touchy), and a few more guys working at Cermel. I won’t even get started about strangers on the streets who want my phone number the moment they see me. It happens to all the European girls here. I think it's even worse for the medical students who deal with participants on a daily basis. All Gabonese men (at least the ones I've met so far) cheat. Some have a wife and even children, but they are away from home and they have 'desires', so they cheat. The strangest thing happened a few days ago. I was having a conversation about love and relationships with a guy, and when I told him I don't have such 'desires' he suddenly looked down, as if he expected to find dust and spiderwebs between my legs.. And the next look on his face was clearly one that matched the idea that he could change that. He openly bragged about his love making skills. Eeeewww.. One other guy said, 'You have to cheat on your girlfriend/boyfriend, because only then you can find out if you love them the most'. So what does love or marriage mean here? It means that you will always come back to that person after all the cheating you've done. Maybe the next time I can tell you more about what the women here think about the unfaithful men in their country ;)

The river between the island and Isaac

Saturday morning breakfast

Gotta have that fruit! It was actually good :)

Smiling moon