365: High Fashion

I decided on a whim Tuesday night that I was going to go all out for my fashion choices for this conference. Since I sick during MasQueerade I didn't get to wear my super sexy dress. I decided to pair it with a suit jacket to bring down from cocktail to high fashion business. I could have went safe with plain black tights but where's the fun in that? Fishnets and heels thank you very much. I got some funky cheap jewelry at Forever 21 to finish off the look. Based on the number of compliments I got today me thinks I should take more fashion risks on the regular. Rawr.

365: Recruit, Recruit, Recruit!

Today kicks off the first official day of recruiting for the Gambia trip. I was going to give a 5 minute pitch to my Community Health class...but they were so pumped about it that it turned into 30! Whoops! I already have 5 students who are "totally going." I just need to get them the application and have them turn in the deposit and we're already halfway to our minimum! Can't wait til we have the all the students signed up so we can start having meetings and getting to know each other!

365: (Winona's) Wild Wine Weekend!

Today was a BLAST. We hit 5 spots & sampled from 8 wineries. I don't think I've laughed so hard in ages. This was at the first stop and goofball's look was only a preview of things to come! I think we celebrated Winona's birthday in style! We're definitely going to have to come back to Santa Cruz soon!

365: Finally Arrived!

After the longest, rainiest drive ever we finally arrived in Santa Cruz. Poor Ange is beat--she does not like driving in the rain! Luckily my cousin hooked us up with a "suite" ass room at the resort where she works and now we can unwind in comfort! Here's to a great weekend!

365: Foggy Farewell

Our old friend dense fog wishes us a fond farewell on our voyage to Indiana. This will soon be replaced by wind chill and snow. Le sigh.

365: T-Minus 38 Hours!

In less than two days we'll be freezing our buns off in Indiana! Can't wait to see all my Hoosier peeps. Gonna miss these dogs and this weather but we'll only be gone 13 days. Now to make sure we don't pack half the house...

365: Ughhhh

There is one downside to our lovely California life. We are not close to a major airport. Chico has an airport but you can only fly to San Francisco and the tickets are much more than what you'd pay if you flew direct from one of the other major airports. Also flying West to East limits your departure times to about 3 a day: leave early get there in the evening, leave around noon get there late, or red eye. Since I'm flying to DC and staying at a hotel, ass crack was the only real choice. So I got up at 2 AM to get to Sacramento for my 6:30 AM flight. Ick.

My Visit to Uromi

I went to Uromi on Saturday. It is the place where we do our annual medical mission trips. I went to visit Father John who runs the Children's Home in the town and has acted as our "administrator" for our medical mission supplies. He keeps track of all the drugs and equipment that we send him and another volunteer, Lucky, comes and picks them up before each clinic. We have 5 clinic sites in Uromi that are run by the public health nurses that staff the public health clinics where our free clinics are held. A recent medical school graduate has been the volunteer doctor overseeing the clinics. We've been so lucky to build this volunteer network finally. It only took 6 years!

After taking care of "business" I got to play with the little kids while the big kids were doing devotionals in the chapel. Here are some cute shots of the kiddos:

Me poisoning their teeth with sugary suckers

Pretending to be innocent of above said crimes.

They were fascinated with rubbing my white skin.

This kid was so excited he peed his pants. Right on my foot.

After playing for a while I went back to my room to "rest and refresh" (and wash pee off my foot). I then had dinner with Father John & the seminarian who has been staying with him. After that we went to the chapel to finish up night time prayers with the kids. Then it was time for bed. At 8:30pm. I know how to live I'm telling you.

But that's ok, I read for a while before falling asleep because I had to get up at 5:15 am because I had to make it to 6 am mass! Definitely a different lifestyle. After mass we had breakfast and watched the Catholic network on tv and the driver came to fetch me at 1o. I was back in Benin by noon and have been hanging out all day!

Quickie Update

I woke up this morning and my throat was NOT hurting, thank goodness. I'm a little congested but nothing bad so I'm hoping my rest and relaxation yesterday helped, as well as the extra vitamins and zinc tablets. I'm hoping this is the worst of it and then it'll be over!

We had our last day of staff development training today. It was very interesting overall but I'm glad it's over. My butt is seriously hurting from sitting in plastic chairs for hours at a time (as well as my overall anxiety level of sitting in them!) so I'm glad I won't have to do that anymore. I learned a lot about the University and the general campus environment which is of course very helpful to my work.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow since the training ended a day early. I want to try and get to the market and get some small craft items to send with Father John to the US for the fundraising event for the foundation. Other than that, I will hopefully take it easy and get some work done. I will be in Uromi all weekend visiting Father John & the children at the home, which is always fun and should be nice. The M's driver will take me on Saturday and Father John will arrange for transport back to Benin on Sunday. I'm sure I will attend mass with the children on Sunday as they have a chapel on the grounds. Hopefully I will get to check out some of the clinics or at least meet with some of the people who have been working hard the past year keeping our clinics running.

I have a few short posts coming up soon, but I'm not sure I'll finish them tonight. Stay posted!

Oh hai!

Yeaaaaah. I know, it's been a LONG, HOT MINUTE. Sorry about that. I've been PhDing and all that jazz. Long story short, I accomplished in less than a month what it typically takes about 3 months (or longer!) to do. I've been working like a DOG...wait, our dogs are lazy as heck, so maybe like a crab fisherman (we're obsessed with Deadliest Catch right now) and that's clearly left me with little time to blog.

The quick and dirty summary:

I leave for Nigeria next Friday, July 16th...yeah, HOLY SHIT. I'm excited but also nervous and overwhelmed all at the same time. Luckily I made a visit to the IU Health Center and got a prescription for an anti-anxiety drug (don't worry...I'm taking a very low dose, I will NOT be following Lindsay Lohan on her downward spiral) so I'm doing well with all the extra anxiety.

Our garden has died. A sad, painful, ugly death. None of our seeds grew basically (except for some cute little carrots), but some broccoli and tomato plants we bought at the Farmers Market did...and then the weeds took over. They are technically still living, but they don't look so hot. We are having some landscaping done because we have a rat bastard dog who's torn up the yard and it makes it REALLY hard to mow and on their agenda is to tear out the garden and re-seed with grass. As we will be moving in the next year (depending on where I get a J-O-B) so we need to beautify for selling anyway.

I've got 2 days left at my part-time office job for Dr. O. After that I will be a for-real full time student and full-time oh-my-God-I'm-doing-my-dissertation-research-and-I'm-my-own-boss (in NIGERIA for that matter). This will be the first time I've not had some sort of "real" job (eg I have to clock in or report to someone) in like a century. It's kind of weird. Good, but weird.

We just got back from an awesome family vacay. Fun times in OBX.

My momma is moving to Cali next week as she got a job at CSULB. Lucky biatch.

Oh yeah, I can't stop watching Lindsay Lohan cry on TMZ. So funny.

Still head over heels in love. We're trying not to think about the fact that I'm leaving for the next 5 months. Of course that's impossible so we're pretending like it's no bigs and not dwell on it. Everyday we get closer to the 16th the more panicked we feel but we're still pretending like "la, la, la, whatever." It'll be a mess next week I'm predicting. Oh, and the mission got canceled so it's unlikely Ange will be coming to visit. So it really will be 5 months apart. Ugh.

Um, yeah, that's about all. That I can think of anyway. In my swirling head. I am planning on blogging like a maniac from Nigeria. Not just because I want to keep everyone in the loop, but I think it will also help my sanity. And it will be a good journal for later. And probably helpful in my research. And a good way to maintain my friendships at home. So yeah, expect it.

We'll see if I get any more blogs out before then. I hope, but often I'm wrong. Time will tell.

Weekend at Hilly's

Ange posted a quick little diddy over on her page, but here's my version:

A few months ago I was surfing the net and saw that Girlyman (Ange's favorite band ever) was playing in Ann Arbor, MI over Valentine's Day weekend. I did a little research and realized that Ann Arbor was a mere hour away from East Lansing where my sister lives (and is attending MSU Vet School). Hmm...I had a great idea! So I told Ange to request Valentine's Day weekend off and we were going to go visit my sister.

We got back from Africa and I asked her if she had requested the weekend off. She said I never made it clear that she should so then we had to do a last minute scramble to switch with someone. After she confirmed the switch I ordered the tickets for the show (still supposed to be a surprise). About 2 weeks before the trip Ange came up with a GREAT IDEA. She noticed that Girlyman was playing in Ann Arbor and she researched it and realized it was only an hour away from Hilary! Kill me. There goes my surprise. This was like the third surprise she'd ruined in a month so of course I was bummed...but we were still going to visit Hil & see Girlyman anyway!

Hilary, being the crazy-crazbo she is, decided that she wanted to get a Great Dane and happened to get one the week before we came. Long story short, the day before we came her dog and her roommate's dog decided to get in a fight over rawhide, both dogs were injured as well as her roommate, they left to get medical help for the more hurt dog (her roommate's) and her roommate. They stashed Diesel (Hilly's new dog) in the extra bedroom and when they got back home they found the 145 lb. 6 foot tall dog walking around on the roof. Lovely. Apparently he decided to rip down the blinds, open the window, tear out the screen and walk around on the roof (they have a tri-level so it has multiple roofs). How excited were we??? Ok, not so much.

Window damage

Giant dog

Anyway, we ended up having a very splendid time with the giant dog. We had an awesome time at the Girlyman concert (where YES, Ty did remember Ange BY NAME), laid around a ton by the fireplace (yay!), and realized that my sister and her roommate live like cave-people. Ange goes into more detail but basically, Hilary does not have a knife in the entirety of her house. Ange had to make us breakfast with a butter knife and a pizza cutter. Luckily we did some Goodwilling that weekend and were able to find a knife (still in packaging!) for $0.79. Yay, Hilary now has one knife! Believe me, she's got a lot further to go to become a more established adult ;)

All in all, a good weekend with my love and my baby sister!

Senegal & Gambia Winter 2009-2010

I was invited again to be assistant trip leader on the Sene-Gambia Winter 2009-2010 by Dr. Emil Nagengast, but as part of my acceptance I negotiated that Ange could come with me on her very first trip to Africa! He agreed and we were off!

Now last year I when I went I did some more extensive blogging, but since this is my second trip I don't have as much to say. I'll go through the highlights and if you want more detailed info, and if my darling partner Ange does any personal blogging I'll link to her site.

We got up early on December 30th and set off on our trip. Ange was over the moon with excitement and anticipation! After a quick layover in Detroit we landed in New York and met up with the rest of the Juniata crew. We set out that evening for Madrid where we would have a 12 hour layover. Ange was not able to sleep on the 8+ hour flight and was pretty tired when we got to Madrid. We metroed to downtown, but unfortunately it was raining and a little chilly (50's maybe?) and since Ange was exhausted from not sleeping we pondered what to do. We hit a little cafe to plan our attack and have a nice warm coffee and croissant. We decided that we wanted to see Madrid but were tired and didn't want to be wet so we decided to expend a little of our funds and hop on one of the sightseeing buses. It was a little crowded because apparently others had the same idea but eventually we got some seats by the fogged up windows. After riding around for an hour and listening to the city tour we decided we'd hop off, grab lunch and head back to the airport so Ange could lay down and hopefully sleep. Even through her delirium she spied a sign that said "Vegetarian" and we walked over to check it out. Turned out it was a yummy little vegetarian falafel place! With full bellies we headed back to the airport where Ange was able to crash out a bit on the floor and catch a little nap. The funniest part was how many people stared at her sleeping on the floor. This happened again on the way back so I think that Spaniards just aren't used to seeing people crashed out sleeping in airports. Apparently Americans are slovenly and the Europeans are much better able to remain composed. Whatevs.

We finally boarded our flight and arrived in Dakar a short 5 hours later! Arriving in Dakar always seems to be chaotic and this time was no exception. I told everyone not to let "porters" take their bags because they were just people who were hanging out looking for tips but as I suspected might happen they were not forceful enough in their "No thank yous" and I looked back and every single one of them had someone pushing their luggage cart. Sigh. When we got to the bus an airport security dude came out and scared them all away so they didn't get their tips anyway. We loaded up the bus, headed to The Fana Hotel and checked in. We got a nice fireworks show on the roof of the hotel and then headed to bed.

The next morning we loaded up early and hit the road for The Gambia. Luckily since it was early and New Year's Day there was no traffic leaving Dakar (a rarity) and we zipped along for a few hours. Then the usual: a blown our tire. We spent about 45 minutes on the side of a road near a little village. Within 10 minutes nearly the entire village was standing there staring at us. I mean, how often do you think a bus full of foreigners break down near this village? The kids of course loved it and thought it was the best thing ever. We finally got back on the road, stopped in disgusting Kaolack (dirtiest city ever) for lunch, and finally got to The Gambia that evening. We got the students settled at Mohamed's house (Nigerian guy who lives in The Gambia and has basically turned his house into a guest house that Juniata uses for students) and headed to Emil's apartment. Emil is spending the entire spring semester on sabbatical in The Gambia and his wife and son are coming over for the semester as well so he had to find a nice place for them. Wow, was it nice! We got there and no joke, one of the nicest places I've ever stayed in Africa. It was a very gorgeous and modern 2 bedroom apartment. We were so lucky! Although I have to say, this set a standard for the trip that really made it "Africa-Lite" for Ange. But since I plan to drag her all over the world we'll have plenty of time to rough it later and she'll be able to place it in perspective later.

The next day we did a city tour of Banjul, including their insane market, had lunch and then spent some free time in the afternoon at the beach.

On the 3rd we went to the Bijilo Monkey Forest in the morning. Very cool with lots of monkeys running around. One of the students was ill when we left the US and couldn't seem to shake it. But, unlike some students, she didn't want to miss out so she kept pushing herself to join in the activities. About 20 minutes into the monkey walk she started feeling really bad so we broke off from the group and ended up walking back to the van. She rested and eventually the other students caught up with us. We then headed to the crocodile pond (Katchikally), the Bakau Market (my favorite shopping & craft market), and then had some more free time. Ange and I broke off from the group and headed off to sneak in to the fancy resort hotels and spent some time pretending we're fancy schmancy. Headed back to clean up at the apartment and have dinner with the students.

On Monday we went to the Embassy in the morning and then to GAMCOTRAP. We then had lunch and the afternoon off. Ange had a touch of "Banjul Belly" so we decided to take the afternoon off and she napped while I set up the internet in the apartment and surfed the web. This is when I found out my cousin had died and we decided to spend the rest of the night in because I just didn't feel like socializing that evening.

The next day we went to the Gambian Press Union to talk about press freedom and visited The Point newspaper. We had lunch and then had some free time. Ange still wasn't feeling that great so we did some wandering around and then just took it easy back at the apartment.

The next day (6th) we went back to the Gambia is Good Farm, which is my favorite place in The Gambia. It took us about a thousand years to get there because the President of Senegal was in town and President Jammeh was taking him back to the airport (which is just past GIG Farm) and we got stopped by the insane motorcade forever. Finally got there, had the tour, and ate delicious lunch. I had a few hours to rest and then my big lecture sponsored by the US embassy. The lecture went very well, had a number of people attending and several press representatives.

On Thursday we headed up-country to Tendaba Nature Camp. On the way we got to stop at this really awesome hospital (my second favorite thing to do in Africa) that was all solar powered. I was in heaven looking at their awesome technology. We got to Tendaba, took a nap and had a lovely dinner. During the middle of dinner my lecture was featured on the Gambian national news (they only have one television station) for several minutes. It was pretty cool. All the students were like "LINDSAY! You're on tv!!!" and the other tourists there were all looking at me and were like "Seriously, that's you?" probably wondering how the hell I was on tv and also in this random nature camp the next day. Funny stuff.

The next day we went on a walking tour of Tendaba, Ange had a bowel attack in the middle of the walk and had to have a moment out in the bushes, we took a nap that afternoon, watched the locals challenge the JC students to a soccer match (ended in a 3-3 tie--not too shabby!), had dinner and went to bed.

On Saturday we got up at a leisurely time while many of the students went on a nature walk or fishing. We headed out and stopped at our driver Yabo's family home and then at a school that a Gambian ex-pat living in the UK was fixing up with money and volunteers from his foundation. We drove back to Banjul after a quick stop at Kanilai (where I was recognized by a hotel staffer--"Hey! Were you on tv the other night???"). We had some free time at the beach when we got back, grabbed dinner and headed back to the luxury apartment.

Sunday was our last day in Banjul before we headed back to Senegal for a few days before we left. Ange and I decided to camp out at the beach. We woke up around 9, got ready, headed to the beach, had tapalapas for breakfast, laid on the beach for hours, played in the surf a few times, had some fresh squeezed juice, ate lunch and eventually headed back to the apartment to start packing stuff up. Took a break for dinner and then finished packing and went to bed.

The next day we packed everything up and headed to Senegal. 12 hours later and a few stops we finally arrived at Pink Lake. Students hung out and smoked hookah and we went to bed early.

On Tuesday we got up and went on the WW2 jeeps for a tour of Pink Lake, a visit to a Fulani village, rough and tumble over the sand dunes, a stop at the beach, then back to the resort for lunch. We then spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool and watched the students ride camels. Had dinner at the resort and headed back to Dakar for the night.

Got up fairly early, took a driving tour of Dakar, stopped at the lighthouse and saw the nearly finished Statue to the African Renaissance, headed to the ferry and waited for a little over an hour in a very crowded waiting area, took the ferry to Gorree Island, bombarded by the aggressive sellers on Goree, found the tapestry we were looking for, had lunch, nearly got in a fight with some bitchy market lady, got back to Dakar, relaxed and showered at the hotel and headed to the airport!

Flew at night and landed in Madrid at 5 am. Decided to not go in to Madrid and sleep in the airport instead. More staring. Felt much more rested. Got on the never-ending flight home, arrived NYC in the evening, headed to our hotel, slept well.

Friday the 15th we wandered around NYC doing nothing much. Almost missed our flight because we got slightly lost and traffic, made it home.

So I know that was the express version, but even that took me over an hour to write. If you want a pictorial of the trip we loaded all of our pics of the trip on Shutterfly.com and Shutterfly lets you build a little webshare site for all your pics. We have them all uploaded and are working on captioning all of the photos. Wait a few more days if you want to read all the captions, or if you are impatient you can check them out now: http://angeandlindsaystriptoafrica.shutterfly.com/

Things that make you pause...

Ange and I are going to Senegal & The Gambia over the holidays. I was invited back to the trip that I assisted on this summer with Emil and as part of my signing back on I was able to negotiate Ange coming with us. Sweet huh?

Now Ange has never been to Africa, or anywhere outside of the US besides the Bahamas, so she needed to get a long list of vaccines that are required for travel in most developing countries. That whole process is not as easy as it may sound. First there is finding out what vaccines you need. Then there is figuring out which ones may be covered by insurance (if you have it), then figuring out what doctor's offices or clinics have the vaccines you need, then you have to figure out how far in advance you need to get the vaccines (and if they are multi-series vaccines how many times you have to visit and how that factors into the timeline), then there is the budgeting for the tremendous amount of money you have to spend, and finally you make all of your appointments to the (likely) many places you need go to get said vaccines. So Ange did all that (with some assistance from her well traveled partner :)) and started making her rounds. She went to her primary care physician to get her first dose of HepA and meningitis. She had an appointment to see the travel doc and get her typhoid and yellow fever, but in the midst of that the H1N1 vaccine came out and Ange's employer was only giving out the nasal mist to its employees, which if you didn't know, is a live vaccine. Sometimes live vaccines can't be given in conjunction with other vaccines so I suggested she call the travel doc and check. I was correct and she had to reschedule the travel appointment for one month after the H1N1 mist.

That month finally rolls around last Wednesday (day before Thanksgiving--this is important) and because it is Thanksgiving week I am home from Bloomington so I decide to go with Ange to her appointment. One for moral support (I've been through it all and know the doc she was going to see--he's done all my travel stuff), and two, I actually love going to doctor's appointments because I'm attentive (and probably annoying) and I always learn something new and useful. When people ask me why I know so many random health things this is why.

So we get to the doctor's office and fill out some paperwork and whatnot and then go back to his office. Now this doctor is really and truly the best travel doc in Indy. He is the only specialist in his practice (but shares office space with another practice that has a different specialty) so it's very personal and one-on-one. He has a really cool office with a big comfy couch and a giant map of the world on one side. He schedules new patients for an hour long session to go over A to Z info with you, prepares a little info packet with a ton of info on the country/countries you are visiting and generally reminds me of an "old school" doctor that is now very rare. He answers any question you ask in a thoughtful and very explanatory way and generally makes you feel very prepared for your trip (from a health perspective anyway).

So we sit down and the doc starts doing a little health assessment questionnaire with Ange that covers basic health and limited health history. After all the standard questions about current health status comes the biggie question that I've learned to anticipate and take in stride, "Are there any other medical conditions that I haven't listed that are important?" I think I've mentioned before but Ange had leukemia as a child, and not just any leukemia, an extremely rare form of leukemia, rare as in there were only 3 people in the US that had the same kind when she was diagnosed. It was also a very aggressive cancer that had to be treated very aggressively. This question always makes the doctors pause for a minute, they sometimes ask a few more questions about it, but generally it is noted and not mentioned again.

This time was different.

Apparently cancer and vaccines aren't the best of friends. The doc was very hesitant about treating Ange with any live vaccine without the consent of her oncologist. For the adult polio booster she was also going to get, no biggie. It's a dead vaccine. For typhoid, we could get around that. Typhoid comes in a live vaccine (lasts longer) and a dead vaccine. So she could get the dead one. But for yellow fever there is only a live vaccine. And it's a pretty potent one apparently. The doc relays this info to us and tells us that even in people who have not had cancer in a very long time, there is some evidence that shows that their immune systems are not 100%. Under normal conditions you don't even know this. Your body just operates like normal and no one is the wiser. However, because the yellow fever vaccine is so potent he was afraid that if he immune system was not 100% it would not be able to fight off the live virus and she could either have some very gnarly side effects (like Encephalitis) or even get a full blown case of yellow fever. Another random health fact: there is no cure or treatment for yellow fever, and there is a 50% chance of dying if you get it. Yikes.

So the doc asks her how tied to this trip she is and would she consider not going. Um, no way. So we talk some more about the risks involved and related issues and decide that the best plan of action would be for her to call her oncologist and check out the situation. If they say no prob then great, if they say no way then she is going to go into a yellow fever endemic area basically unprotected. Yikes again. Now, yellow fever is spread through the mosquito. Luckily she can protect herself by using lots of bug spray. Secondly, there are not that many mosquitos in the areas we go. Finally, the doc pulled up some fancy data system and looked at the rates of yellow fever in Senegal and The Gambia and determined that the last outbreak of yellow fever in Senegal was 2005 and in the 1970's for The Gambia. We are spending nearly all of the time in The Gambia so that was good news. But the other thing that was concerning for us was that you have to show proof of yellow fever vaccination to enter most yellow fever endemic countries and to return to the US (technically). I have never had anyone ask me for my yellow fever card in my entire history of traveling, but knowing our luck, it will happen this time. You can get a waiver certificate and the doc would also provide a letter of support to say she couldn't get the vaccine but there is no guarantee that the countries we are entering would accept it. Sometimes, they don't. Just depends who is asking at the moment. SO, not the best case scenario.

The doc tells Ange to contact her oncologist and then follow up with him. Here's the major issue. Ange was diagnosed when she was 4, was treated for 18 months, went in to remission, received periodic appointments to make sure she was ok and hasn't seen an oncologist since she was 12. She's 28 now. So who the hell is she supposed to call? A random oncologist? Her oncologist, who we don't even know if he is still in practice? The doc suggested we start with a call to Riley (where she was treated) and see if they could make some recommendations. So we finished up there and went to lunch with a lot on our minds.

I swear when we got in the car I thought Ange was going to cry. The whole news was so overwhelming and unexpected I think we were both in shock. I mean, traveling to Senegal and The Gambia are no big deal. Really, there were so few mosquitos in comparison to Nigeria it was incredible. But Nigeria? Forget about it! There is no way that I would even allow Ange to come and visit me in Nigeria if she were unvaccinated. I mean, we talked about it and it came down to this: if it were something that were treatable and she just might get really sick then that's one thing. But the fact that it isn't treatable and there is a 50% chance she could DIE? That's nothing to mess around with. So of course that is problematic since I intend to work in Africa and most of Africa is yellow fever endemic. So that means either I will have to travel alone for a majority of my career or I'd have to change research locations. Both huge things.

So Ange is still upset and is feeling very overwhelmed. So she asks me to start with the calling. Now here is where the whole Thanksgiving this is important. Ange has to have the vaccine by December 20th at the very latest for it to be effective. Additionally, if there is a chance that it's going to make her really sick we want to make sure we are still near good medical care and not on a plane or halfway around the world. So with Thanksgiving falling late this year, we knew that if we had to wait until after the break things were going to get tight, especially if she needed to get tests and whatever else might come along with making sure your immune system is normal. So as we are driving to lunch I find the number for Riley's Pediatric Oncology Clinic and go through this long spiel of why I am calling. Luckily the lady in the clinic was SOOOO NICE! Which I should have expected from Riley, but you know, these days customer service generally blows so I'm just used to talking to idiots on the phone. She gets all the info and tells me that she'll call me back before the end of the day with an update. She knows she may not get a lot of info being that it's the day before Thanksgiving, but she wanted to get the ball rolling.

We go in and have a very morose lunch, drive home feeling more depressed, and try to do some internet research. The internet research was actually helpful to me, although not to Ange who really looked like she wanted to throw herself off a bridge for the rest of the day. I found out a lot of more reassuring info via the net, but unfortunately for every piece of good news, there still seemed to linger some bad news. For instance, since the 1970's only 9 unvaccinated travelers have gotten yellow fever in all of West Africa. That's pretty good, right? BUT, 8 out of those 9 DIED. Scary.

The lady from Riley did call us back a few hours later to let us know that she had tried to find Ange's file but since it was so long ago it had probably been archived and it would take a request to get it out of the archives which make take a few days. She had also emailed the Infectious Disease specialist at Riley as well as one of the pediatric oncologists. She told us she'd update us after the break. Swear, such a nice lady.

The rest of the break we tried not to dwell on the issue and did a good job of keeping out of the focus of our minds. Luckily Ange bounces back quickly so I didn't have to worry about her sanity. We decided to just keep the what ifs until later after we had a definitive decision.

Well wouldn't you know, our wonderful friend of Riley tracked down the right people and on Monday Ange got a call from a doc at Riley giving her the go-ahead for the vaccine! He actually said there was NO REASON to hesitate about it. We had already discussed the fact that we thought our travel doc was just being extra cautious and that since he wasn't an oncologist he could just be way off on the real danger. Turns out, we were right about that! This is not to say we are angry or upset by the whole fiasco. We think it's excellent that the doc was able to be informed (even if overly cautious) and really and truly had Ange's health as the focus. Luckily it was patched up very quickly, it just sucked that we had to worry over the holiday.

Anyway, Ange gets the vaccine tomorrow. Yay! So happy that my little love bug gets to travel the world with me and we don't have to worry about her dying from yellow fever! Just one more thing to be thankful for this holiday.

Our little Veteran...I mean Veterinarian...

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while. I just kept forgetting to transfer the pics from my camera to my hard drive. So long overdue, but just as important this post is about moving Hilary to Michigan State University so she could go to school to become a veterinarian. I talked a little about Hilary's quest to become a veterinarian during her graduation post, but I think there are a few key things I did not mention.

1. Hilary had struggled with which vet school to attend. Yeah, which one. Because she got accepted into 3. Vet schools are notoriously hard to get accepted to, but dear Hilary got accepted to 3. I've got a smarty little sister. Her dream had always been to go to Purdue, but when she visited the schools, turns out she liked MSU better. It was a much more elaborate and semi-heart wrenching experience for her, but in the end that's what it came down to. So far she's very happy with her decision.

2. Hilary has always wanted to be a large animal vet. MSU has an excellent large animal vet program (actually large animals are called food animals but I don't like that so we'll stick to large animals) but they also have some cool exotic animal programs (like zoo animals and stuff) so she's thinking about that as well. This probably worked in her favor in terms of her competitiveness since the majority of students are females who want to do family/small pet vet stuff.

3. This actually has nothing to do with Hil's move to MSU directly, but once time, quite a while ago, my mom, sisters and I were walking through the mall during Veteran's Day and Leslie says "Speaking of Veterans...do you still want to be one?" and then quickly said "I mean, veterinarian." Which of course made us all crack up and also of course we have never let Leslie forget. So Hilary is off being a veteran at MSU. I mean, veterinarian.

When we went to move Hilary to school we also went by the Vet School to check it out. Only Leslie and my mom had been there to visit previously so it was my dad, Gail, Dale and my first time checking it out. I took charge of photo-documenting the trip.

As we pulled in we saw the first sign of excitement!

Ooooh, trucks and trailers! Must mean lots of big animals!

Yay! Animals! Look at the excitement! Home Alone style!

Big animal poop in the parking lot! Definitely in the right place!

Mom being a weirdo (which is normal). Hilary also being a weirdo...also normal.

Hilary and Dad posing awkwardly by a sick horse. Poses normal, sick horse was a new experience.

Insert lame joke about pegasus's and critical care as told by my father...king of corny jokes.

Here's Hilary posing as a Pegasus in front of the critical care center patron saint...or something.

Requisite posing in front of college sign.

Just in case you weren't sure what the Vet's Oath said. Very nice if I do say so myself.

Wooo! Public Health!!!

More awkward posing

Hilary had an awful pimple attacking her face. Like the wonderful and supportive older sister I am I told her it looked like she had a major herpes outbreak and I attempted to photo document it several times. This was the best shot of the bunch.

My mom was trying to give her support and be in solidarity with her.

We're going to Africa!!!

As you know, I went to Senegal & The Gambia this past summer with my former prof/mentor/advisor Emil Nagengast and some crazy kids from Juniata College. I had a blast and think that Emil & I worked well together as a team. It was lightly alluded to that I may be asked to act as a team leader/faculty sponsor for the trip again. I mentioned it to Ange who pretty much said "YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME AGAIN SO SOON!" In addition, I will be doing my dissertation research in Nigeria next year which will mean I will be living in Nigeria for about 6 months. We flirted with the possibility of her coming with me on the Sene-Gambia trip if asked, but since no concrete offers had been made, we didn't delve too much into the topic.

So about a month or so ago, Emil sent me an email to see if I would be interested. There were some logistics to work out so it wasn't 100%, but he wanted to see if I was on board should everything work out. I said I was, but that Ange wasn't going to let me go without her and would it be possible for her to tag along? He said he didn't think it would be a problem, again, we could work out the details regarding additional cost, etc. but that basically if I was a go, she was a go. We were both brimming with anticipation, but trying to not get too excited just in case it didn't happen.

Well we finally got a hard confirmation that everything is a go! And now we're dying with excitement! I won't say who, but someone who may be a Sally Sensitive did get a little teary eyed over the news!

So we will be off to Senegal & The Gambia on December 30th and will return on January 14th. It's in the winter and slightly shorter due to Emil being on sabbatical in The Gambia for the spring semester. We'll all go together, and then I'll bring them back while he stays and waits for his family and the spring semester students to join him.

Also, did I mention we are flying through Madrid and that we have like a 10 hour layover? Which means we get to explore Madrid for a few hours between flights! How awesome is that??? We are just over the moon about this whole trip! Not only do I get to go back to Africa this year, but Ange gets to have her first international experience with me by her side! Awesome!

And I always feel like adding...this is why I've been working my butt off for so many years. Sometimes people say "Ooooh! You're so lucky!" and while I do admit that I *feel* lucky, it has taken a lot more than luck to get where I am. I busted my butt through school my whole life, went after opportunities like a crazy person, and volunteered and networked and did all that I could to get myself into the position I am now. So morale of the story to anyone out there who still has life in them...it's not too late! You can still work hard and achieve awesome, fun, cool things! Whether you are in college or much later, you can still work hard to improve your life circumstances so that you can do cool things too. You just need to be determined and work really hard. Just another Life Lesson brought to you by Lindsay. Enjoy!

Portland: The Highs & Lows

Since I've given an overview of the trip and highlighted some of our favorite parts, I thought I'd give a thumbs up-thumbs down report of Portland plus a few travel tips in case you want to visit:

Positives:

• Beautiful weather--the weather was GORGEOUS the entire time we were there. It wasn't too hot and it wasn't too cold. It was sunny and lovely every day. It is a good idea to wear layers because you can go from slightly cool in the morning to nice and warm in the afternoon. We both had backpacks which were great because we could toss our long sleeves in them as the day warmed up.
  
• Great public transportation & easy accessibility--the TriMet rocks. You can go so many places. One thing you may want to consider is whether or not to actually buy a pass. We didn't realize that many of the routes are free, and even if they aren't, no one checks your ticket. We never once showed our $22.50 a piece week passes that purchased. We felt good about supporting public transport, but it was still a bummer that we didn't really get our money's worth for the passes.
  
• Lots of things to do--We hit the highlights and as you can tell we were pretty busy! 4 full days was perfect to get the highlights. If we wanted to get "more local" then we may have to stay longer. Any shorter and we would have felt jipped.
• Beautiful Town--whether we were in the heart of downtown or driving around the state, the entire place was beautiful. Great architecture, very clean, etc. Visually you will be satisfied!
  

Negatives:

• Bad food, hard to find good food--One of the things we were MOST excited about was all the good food Portland supposedly has. We read several blogs and articles raving about the emphasis on local, organic, good-for-you food. Well wherever it was, we didn't find it. Most of our meals were disappointing. We really wanted to try and find some good restaurants, but we usually just ended up in the first thing we could find after walking and walking for 20-30 minutes. If you are really intent on good food, I would take really good notes of places you want to go and making sure you have good directions on how to get there. We tried to find a few places and got hopelessly lost, but weren't really intent on going any particular place so that probably contributed to why we got crap food the whole time.
  
• Lots of bums--There are tons of homeless, jobless young people. It's one thing to be homeless because you have really hit bad luck, or you have mental issues or substance abuse issues, but the majority of the homeless in Portland are 20-30 somethings. People who are perfectly capable of being productive. They looked like they just wanted to hang out with their friends, smoking cloves and playing guitar. You can't walk a block without being hit up for money. It got old really fast. Even worse was the number of homeless that had pets. I really wanted to punch them in the head. It's one thing to make the choice to be homeless, it is completely another to make a dog live like that. There were many dogs eating leftovers passed on as donations. I'm sure they don't receive proper vet care and they have to sleep outside on a leash 24-7. Of course you know I love animals so that really got to me. Practice your walk and ignore before you go. You'll need it.
  

Overall, even though the food wasn't what we expected and we were harassed a lot by bums, we give Portland a double-thumbs up. We'd definitely go back to visit, and it's now on our list of top places to check out when I'm looking for a job!

Portland's Saturday Market

Ange did the most research before we headed to Portland. Actually, I really didn't do any. Ange sent me some links but between Africa, work and Mercy Foundation activities I was just too busy to do much looking. Ange heard about the Portland Saturday Market and since we are on a major Farmer's Market kick we wanted to check out Portland's Market, which is pretty well known.

It was the first thing we did in Portland after checking into our hotel. The one word I would use to describe it is overwhelming. It is HUGE. There are probably 200 vendors selling a range of things from clothes, food, house items, art and other random things. We wandered around for a couple hours, snacking on various goodies, looking at the booths and buying Ange a snazzy "Local Tastes Better" veggie shirt.

Although we were overwhelmed by the size and activity of the market, I think it is definitely something you should check out if you are in town. It's open both Saturday and Sunday so there is plenty of time to check it out. The food was slightly disappointing. It wasn't terrible, but definitely wasn't that great. The best thing we had was an elephant ear! We thought that was pretty funny being from the land o' fried food. It was a great experience and if you are looking for some cool shopping you'll be all set.

On The Road: Columbia River Gorge, Mount St. Helens, Astoria & Seaside

Our third day in Portland we decided to rent a car and explore the Pacific Northwest. We had looked on a map and saw that Mount St. Helens was only about an hour and a half away and neither one of us had ever seen a volcano so we thought we should take the opportunity to explore it! We also wanted to visit some of the very pretty and well-known waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge and of course, how could we be near the Pacific and not visit the beach? So we checked out Google maps and mapped out a reasonable schedule to hit all three places.

We woke up bright and shiny early, got our showers, packed our bags for the day with plenty of supplies (towels, hiking shoes, flip flops, light jackets, etc.) and walked our two short blocks to Hertz to pick up our sporty car.

Our first stop was the Columbia River Gorge. It was so gorgeous! We first hiked/walked on a paved path around Wahkeena Falls. They were lovely and since it was early we avoided most of the crowds. The paths were paved and not too steep so it would be a good "hike" for just about anyone.

After that we hit Multnomah Falls which is the tallest waterfall in Oregon. It's was much more touristy than Wahkeena which wasn't the greatest, but the falls were awesome so that was a good trade off. It also had a very easy walking path so it would be a good place for non-serious hikers to explore. Below is just one of the shots from Multnomah.

After the Falls we set our GPS to Mount St. Helens and were off! We realized that Portland is much closer to the Washington-Oregon state line than we thought. We drove and drove and finally got to the Mount St. Helen's Visitor's Center. That's when we realized that the actual volcano is an additional hour and a half from the Visitor's Center. Oops. Well we had already made great time that day and thought it would be a waste if we came all that way and didn't see the volcano so we journeyed on. And we had the rental all night so who cared if we got back late?

There were lots of really cool little pull off places along the road to the summit so we got to see the volcano from a ton of viewpoints. Here's a shot of our cute little car at one of the stops.

The closer we got to the volcano the more excited we got! It was cool to see all the lava flow areas, and the way that 30 years later, nothing is still growing in the lava path. Here's a nice shot of my cutie with the mountain in the background.

Washington has done a great job of repopulating the area with wildlife and flora. They have a great sustainable forestry program and all the way up the drive there are little signs with what kind of trees are there, when they were planted, etc. Of course we couldn't get any really good shots of them because either there was no place to pull off or the trees were blocking good shots of the signs. We got this quick shot just to remind us of it.

When we finally got to the top of the mountain, we found out that we were supposed to pay $8 each to go to the observation platform. Well we had already seen the mountain from a billion angles and since we're cheap we decided to skip the platform and snuck our way just to the lower observation deck to take a quick shot. If you were going to spend more time there it would be worth it to hear info from the rangers and possibly hike around the mountain, but since we were just there to take a quick looksee we didn't want to expend $16. We high-tailed it out of there and drove back down the mountainside.

We stopped at the bottom of the mountain right before the highway to check out some souvenirs and grab a quick bite to eat. We chatted up the locals and decided that we'd drive along the river through Astoria and end in Seaside.

Our excitement was building since we are both fanatical ocean lovers. We made an impromptu stop in Astoria when we caught our first glimpse of ocean! We hopped out of the car amidst many Kindergarten Cop jokes and lifted our noses up to smell the sea air. Here's Ange soaking it all up.

We spent about 20 minutes in Astoria, although there are some cute little hotels and the town looked like it could be a nice overnight stop for tourists, and jumped in the car and pointed ourselves to the beach!

We finally got to Seaside around 6. We jumped out of the car and skipped our way down to the beach. We were sooooo excited! It was our first time to a beach together and we soaked up the love and happiness together. Here is the shot of us entering the Pacific Ocean together for the first time. It was FREEZING! I'd guess the water was around 65 degrees. Really, really cold.

There were lots of people on the beach, including lots of people with dogs. Of course we loved that being the crazy dog ladies we are. We even saw a German Shepard that looked like our little Stoney-boy!

There were some stoners that joined us on the beach. We knew they were stoners because A. we saw them smoking a joint when they were out in the water (see pic below) and B. no one but a stoner would have went out to their chests in that water if they weren't stoned. Seriously, I was a little fearful that they were going to get hypothermia and die.

We had so much fun walking around in the ocean and digging around in the sand. We just enjoyed ourselves and loved being in love at the beach! Ange was splashing around a bit and I snapped a quick one of her.

We decided to wait out the sunset because neither one of us had ever really watched a sunset on the beach, and for sure not with each other! It was awesome. Our last lovey-dovey shot at the beach below.

We headed out to dinner, which sadly, was the only disappointing part of the day. We happened to pick the crappiest seafood restaurant in the entire town. Oh well, the rest of the day was great so we just focused on that. We drove back through the longest, darkest mountain path ever. Finally got back to Hertz at 11:45. Walked back to the hotel and crashed into bed. Good times :)

Oregon Zoo

As you know Ange & I are crazy animal lovers, so naturally we couldn't visit Portland without going to the Oregon Zoo! The majority of our trip was unplanned because we wanted to really go on vacation and not be tied to anything, so when we found ourselves with nothing to do on Sunday afternoon we thought the zoo would be a perfect excursion! We mapped out our train route and hit the rails!

The zoo was really easy to get to as there is a TriMet stop at the zoo entrance. Like I mentioned previously, we actually forgot our passes in the room, but the TriMet is different from any other mass transit system I've been on in that you don't really ever show your pass to anyone. You don't have to scan it to get through any turnstiles, you just jump on! So that is how we managed to not have our pass. You get a discount (small, but hey, anything helps!) and luckily the zoo man was nice and let us in with the discount anyway.

We walked through the entirety of the zoo stopping and taking some pics here and there. Ange took lots of animal pics which you can see on her blog, but I mostly like to take funny pictures so here are some of my gems.

This is Ange posing next to a sign talking about Small Fry...because she is a small fry.

Next we decided to ride some ponies in the petting zoo barn. Ange had a hard time with her steed, but I think she finally was able to get it under control.

Next we visited the Primate Center. Monkeys & apes are always so hilarious to me. The orangutans were so cute. They had a sheet with a whole cut in it. When we first got there, one was sitting underneath it and hiding. Sadly there were way too many people oohing and ahhing so I couldn't get a pic. It finally ditched the sheet and immediately the other one came over put it over his head and was walking around like a little ghost. We were cracking up. Here is the ghost climbing the tree.

When we were leaving the Primate Center we noticed some people looking over the railing to this one corner. We peeked around and saw this goofy chimp all laid out on the concrete enjoying the sun. It looked like he had fallen off the wall and was all sprawled out but we watched him long enough to know he was just sunbathing. Totally no care in the world.


Next we stopped at the Bat House which is pretty much the most disgusting place I've ever been. There were hundreds of bats just hanging upside down and bat poop all over the bottom of their exhibit. I just wanted to barf all over the place. Caught this gem of a photo showing a giant pair of testicles on one of the disgusting creatures. Serious kahones.


Finally, what would the zoo be without a little love? Luckily there were lots of nice people around willing to take pics of people so we got a cute snap in.


The zoo overall was pretty fantastic! It didn't have anything really that I haven't seen before, and it isn't huge by any means (about the same size as the Indy Zoo), but the layout and synchronicity with nature was really nice. They have made great pains to integrate it with the surrounding woods and landscape so that was cool to see. It was also very eco-friendly, which is no surprise since all of Portland seems very eco-friendly. A+!

Voodoo Doughnuts

I mentioned in the mega-blog about Portland that Ange had heard about this nifty little doughnut shop called Voodoo Doughnuts. She can't remember if she heard it on the Travel Channel or on the Food Network, but just knew that they served some really tasty doughnuts and wanted to try them out!

Sidenote: sadly, I don't have any pictures of VD. We bought a new camera for Ange right before we went because her old camera suffered a tragic death during a lame-o driveway party in Noblesville. She was very sad and mopey about it so we decided to get a new one before we left so she could be snapping away. The other advantage is that my camera, while awesome, is rather bulky. We got her a kicky little CoolPix in a sweet purple color. She actually wanted a blue one, but they were out and we didn't have time to wait for a special order. We got a good deal on it at Best Buy and I found a cool little hip carrying case for easy access. So on many of our excursions we just used her camera rather than worrying about mine. Ange did a really nice blog about Portland including a huge excerpt about VD with lots of pictures, you can check it out on her blog.

So VD is known for having crazy doughnut combos like Captain My Captain (doughnut with Captain Crunch on the top), Butter Fingering (Devils food, vanilla, and crushed Butterfinger), Dirty Snowball (chocolate cake doughnut covered with pink marshmallow glaze and surprise filling), etc. However, they are most famous for their Maple Bacon bar, which is exactly as it sounds. A maple glazed doughnut with two slices of bacon on top. I know, as my sister Leslie said "SICK!" but Ange swears it's like a little slice of heaven. Being a vego I cannot vouch for her. But I can say that I tried a plain maple doughnut and it was delicious. And so was the old fashion chocolate, the old fashion blueberry, the Butterfingering, and the No Name. We went to VD twice and took home extras for snacks. What can I say? They were GOOD!

In addition to yummy doughnuts, they also have a cool vibe going on. It is a very alternative/hipster place. Lots of tattooed people and funky clothes. Definitely up our alley anyway.

The only thing you need to be prepared for is long lines at times. We went on Sunday mid-morning and we ran into the brunch crowd and waited about 45 minutes for doughnuts. I know not everyone has the patience we do so if you don't, you may want to try and hit some off times. We drove by on Monday morning on our way to exploring around 9 am and there wasn't any line at all. We went on Tuesday evening around 8:30 pm and we waited maybe 15 minutes. So definitely scope it out if you aren't in it to win it ;)

Bottom Line: I would definitely hit Voodoo Doughnuts if you are in the Portland Area!

Found this blog post about VooDoo Doughnuts...written by a guy who has a blog just about doughnuts. It gives you all the info you might want to know about the doughnuts, so if you are serious about your eatin', check it out.