I have some not-so-great news to deliver. Olivia's mother, Karen (the Love-of-Dragonflies Karen), was stung multiple times after attempting to upright her toppled beehive late last week. As I understand it, she is now in septic shock and has been evacuated to Bangkok for further treatment. Olivia has gone with her.
Wednesday, I also found out that my own mother had gone to the hospital and possibly had a bleeding ulcer. [ Update ] After having a camera scope it out yesterday, they didn't find an obvious ulcer, only three lesions (more tests needed). :(
It was a lot to take in, but right now both are doing better than when I first found out!
With Olivia's absence (which will probably be longer than the week I have left), there also comes a great opportunity. Olivia has given me all the resources and her full confidence to go out and conduct these interviews -- on my own. After skyping with Lisa and conferring with Aditi, I've decided to do it. I am terrified of screwing something up, especially since this is Oliva's masters we are talking about, but with only two, maybe three, hitis I'm going to visit, she should have enough data to figure out whatever wacky tales I bring back. :) This will also make for an insanely busy last week (but I wouldn't want it any other way :)).
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Disclaimer! This next part is incredibly informal and mostly for my own sake of remembering what I did here.
A rundown of the past three days!
Tuesday night: For dinner I went to OR2K (a vegetarian/Middle East restaurant) with Boris, Solene, Vinod, and Vanessa! I had a mint lemonade (an experience in itself) and a potato burek, which is like a calzone but stuffed with spiced mashed potatoes! CARBS ON CARBS ON CARBS it was so delicious! Definitely home-y / feel-good food. :) The restaurant was also visually enticing; I don't know why we don't use black lights more often. They are sweet.
Wednesday night: I met up with Neha at Cafe Soma for dinner then it was off to futsal! There were four teams that night and a ton of ladies! I accidentally picked up the ball outside the half circle as goalie, leading to a foul and a goal (oops...) but my lesson ought to be learned by now (that was the second time it happened...). Time at Futsal always flies by too quickly. :)
Thursday morning: I went for a run! In the rain! :D
Thursday night: Vanessa invited me to her farewell dinner *cue tears*. We went to Dan Ran, a Japanese restaurant I have been dying to go to, and met up with the three people she had been in the field with for the past month! They were all super quirky and thus super awesome. We all laughed so much and so hard. It was like being back among friends, having inside jokes and disregarding silly table manners. It was fantastic, and I couldn't thank Vanessa enough for letting me join in. :) As we walked back home, it was really starting to sink in for her that she was leaving in the next 12 hours. But she hadn't gone souvenir shopping at all! So I gathered all the Nepali things I had acquired thus far and went to give them to her so that she would also have souvenirs! While she only ended up taking one bag, we both enjoyed going through all the knick-knacks and wishing that neither of us were leaving so soon.
Besides that, it has been the office life for me! On the to-do list for work: three more cities, intros/conclusions/acknowledgements/biblio/cover page, editing, editing, editing, writing up the interviews, going and doing the interviews, writing up those interviews, putting together a presentation, and presenting (I am doing my own brown bag!). So, here is to a productive week!
I hope you all find yourselves in good health.
Peace and love,
Abby
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhuC2oEcyKo
Abby: I just attended your Brown Bag presentation at ICIMOD and it was terrific. As I said in the seminar room, I’m very impressed at how much information you were able to gather, read, and synthesize in just 2 months while also visiting "Hitis" and interviewing the managers and users of those water systems. Your ability to communicate the research results was excellent, but even more impressive was your ability to extemporize good answers to about a dozen questions from ICIMOD staff on various aspects of the water supply situation in these 9 cities. Colby College and the field of Anthropology are lucky to have you join their ranks. Godspeed!
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