Day 61: Sibebe Rock

Sibebe Rock

This is Sibebe Rock, which is about 10 km outside of Mbabane and is located in Mbuluzi I believe. It is also about 5 miles down from where I live in Pine Valley. The driver, Simangaliso asked if I ever seen it, and I said I probably did but wasn't aware of what it was. Simangaliso knows how much I like pictures so he recommended I go there so that I can put it on my blog! I did some research and learned that Sibebe is the largest exposed granite pluton in the world!

More pictures of Sibebe

Day 61: Relaxing Day at Baylor

Today was one of the most relaxing days at Baylor. After the hard work and success of organizing the focus groups, this day was well needed. Chantal was working on data entry and I reviewed the facility-level survey and distributed the first one to the Senior Nurse after Nobuhle looked over the survey and approved it. I'm glad I was able to play a role in constructing the survey as Nobuhle said that the survey was comprehensive good enough for continued use. The data clerks has began their second round of interviews for cases at RFM Baylor today. We're finally starting to get a bit more cases! I also had a talk with Katharine from CHAI for further technical assistance and updating her on the progress of the project. During the meeting, Dr. Sarah also came in to discuss one of the major limitations to the study: we don't have a representative sample of cases at each clinic since most of our cases are likely to come from the Baylor sites and we have a higher representation of controls in our study, so we have a little bias which is very difficult to rectify because cases are limited and most of the time unavailable, non-reachable, or unwilling to participate within the study. Katherine also recommended places to go and things to do during our trip in Cape Town in 2 more weeks! She was there last week.

Chantal entering data - pretending to be productive lol

Today, I also had time to work on this blog since I know I am super behind! Today I just realized how much I've done in Swaziland and that time flies. I've been here for two months already! I didn't expect for it to take as long as it did to organize my photos because I took over two thousand pictures! I took a lot of the same pictures and then chose the best ones for the blog.

Beautiful day downtown - on my way to the food court with Chantal. I'm going to order the quesadillas at Spur again.

The grand opening of a new clothing store called Power Fashion Factory at The Mall

Day 60: Focus Group at RFM Baylor

Top Two Photos: Venue for focus group in the Medical Library of RFM. Bottom Photo: Meeting room next to the Medical Library

Today, we held another focus group at RFM Hopsital as planned. Before leaving for Manzini, I picked up the order of doughnuts for the focus group today. The focus group started late like the one at Baylor Mbabane yesterday because we were waiting for at least eight participants to show up. Some of the participants started to get mad and impatient. Then Chantal and I left with the drivers to pick up the food from Moonlite Restaurant in Mbabane, which is about 15-20 minutes away from Manzini. The focus group session ended while we were still in Mbabane, so the participants were upset that they had to wait another half an hour for us to come with the food. Overall, the focus group was still a good turn out. Twelve people sat through the focus group (two participants came with family members) and a nurse debriefed them towards the end of the discussion. Neli led today's focus group again while Sibusiso took notes. Neli did a great job facilitating both focus groups!

Chantal and I taking pictures in the Medical Library and Meeting Room

Photos that I took of Chantal in the Meeting Room

More photos of RFM

HIV Testing van that I saw outside of RFM Baylor. I just took a picture of it because it reminded me of the HIV outeach and community mobilization efforts I've witnessed and participated in while in the States!

Day 59: Focus Group at Baylor Headquarters

Meal for focus group

Today is the first focus group for the controls of our study at Baylor Headquarters in Mbabane. Chantal and I bought doughnuts for the participants to have at the beginning of the focus grip and then we picked up the food from Moonlite Restaurant, which is a packed meal that we gave them at the end of the focus group session. The focus group was a good turn out! Eight participants showed up, which was the minimum number of participants expected to attend each focus group.  One of the data clerks, Neli, led the focus group today since she speaks Siswati. Another data clerk, Ndumiso took notes during the focus group discussion. The participants also seemed to have a lot of questions about pediatric ARV treatment so Dr. Sarah and on of the expert clients came into the meeting during the debriefing period at the end to answer their questions. I also ordered food from Moonlite again for tomorrow’s focus group. 

Yesterday, Chantal went back Nhlangano to finish data collection with her data clerks, Neli and Nozipho, and my data clerks resumed data collection at RFM Baylor. I went to get my official work permit at the Immigration office (since if you are in Swaziland for more than 30 days, you need a VISA or a work permit if working in the country). Then, I went to Moonlite Restaurant to order food for the focus group (the manger wasn’t there so I had to go back). Ndumiso recommended this restaruant since they sell cheap food. Then I went to RFM Baylor to assist the data clerks with data collection, and then went back to Mbabane to confirm the order  of the meals at Moonlite. It cost only 20 Rand (2 US dollars) each for a chicken meal (see top photo), 25 ($2.50) Rand for beef, 30 Rand ($3) for a pescetarian meal, and 8 Rand (80 cents) each for a drink. Finally, I went back to RFM Baylor and the data clerks finished confirming participants for focus group (3 did not pick up) and Ndumiso came back to Baylor with me to prepare for today's focus group at Baylor and Sibusiso stayed behind to finish data collection.

Day 56: Loc Maintenance and New Friends

Re-twisted my hair for the same price (100 Rand, which includes a tip of 20 Rand). My dreadlocks are getting a little thicker!

Left Photo: Two weeks ago (7/11) when I re-twisted my hair. Right photo: Today. As you can see, my locks are starting to increase in volume.

Today, the girls and I also planned on going to Hlane Royal National Park again, but our plan didn't work out because the Kombi took too long to pull out of the Kombi Station and so we would've missed our reservation. So instead, we had dinner at Mantenga Lodge with two other undergraduate doing research with ICAP from Columbia University, Naomi and Noeleen. ShaCoria met them at an ICAP party last week. We talked about the details of our research project and recommended places for us to visit in Cape Town and in Johannesburg when we going during our last weekend here!

Dinner at Mantenga Lodge - forgot to take a picture with the two girls from ICAP. Will try to get a picture of them before they leave (they will be leaving August 8th)

Day 55: Visit to Nobuhle's Home

Mrs. Nobuhle Mthethwa's home

Today the data clerks, Sibusiso and I resumed data collection at RFM Baylor. Because I forgot the computer they use for data collection again, we were running late again, so I offered to treat the guys to Braai again. I also went to Nobuhle's house to get her laptop so that she can give me the EID dashboard again because file was corrupt on Chantal's flash drive since a virus was on it. at the prekos to study. The other data clerks, Neli and Nozipho, began data collection at Nhlangano. Chantal decided to stay over Jessica and ShaCoria's house for one night and I decided to stay home and study since Dr. Preko would be quizzing me on some GRE words on Sunday.

Yesterday, I remained at Baylor in the morning Mbabane in order to organize the focus groups for next week and get approval from Dr. Sarah to do data collection at the other Baylor sites (RFM and Hlati-COE). I also showed Chantal how to enter data today and I went to RFM later for the approval letter from the senior medical officer of RFM in order to be authorized to hold focus group there and to possibly start data collection there today. I went to RFM to start data collection with the guys, Ndumiso and Sibusiso, and Chantal's flash drive had a virus so it took us a while to get access to the EID Dashboard, which we needed for data extraction. When we finally got it to open with assistance from the data clerk at RFM Baylor, we started looking through DBS logbook to collect data for the study.

Day 53: Visit to Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital

Chantal and I at Raleigh Fitkin Memorial (RFM) Hospital Baylor Satellite Clinic in Manzini, Swaziland

Today I went to Raleigh Fitkin Memorial (RFM) Hospital with the data clerks, Ndumiso and Sibusiso. We talked to the administrators at RFM and informed them about our research study and told us to come back later on during the day in order to speak with the supervisor about the study. The supervisor still wasn't there when we returned so we decided to go to RFM again tomorrow morning. So we should be able to start data collection at RFM Baylor tomorrow. Chantal and I also had a meeting with Nobuhle at the end of our day after our request to use the EID Dashboard, which is a database with all of the DNA PCR test results that were done among infants at all the clinics in Swaziland. This database would make data collection more efficient for us because it would speed up the process of data extraction from the DBS logbooks and electronic medical record system (EMR).

More pictures of RFM Baylor

Chantal and I taking pictures with Sibusiso, one of our data clerks, at RFM

Picture of King Sobuza (KS) II Clinic in Manzini, Swaziland. Since I was in Manzini, I decided to take a picture of KS II, which is another site in which the research study is being implemented. I wasn't able to go with the data clerks as they were doing data collection here because I was working on the Access database for the study.