Back from the field

I got back from our two week pilot study after spending the last 5 days in the district of Simanjiro. I spent my first night in Simanjiro sharing a bed with the ward executive officer (Yenie) of Loiborserit, who turned out to be the sister of someone on the field team (he knew she was in Simanjiro, but was surprised when we ran into her randomly in Loiborserit). She was nice and put up a bug net because I asked our driver (who is from Loiborserit and had an empty house (really two concrete rooms) for us to stay in), if he had a bug net. He said there are no mosquitoes, to which I replied "I don't care about Malaria, it is the spiders I'm worried about". That became the joke of the week, they all think that it is hilarious that I sleep more peacefully with a bug net because of spiders, but whatever, I do. Anyway, so when we were offered a place to stay with Yenie she kindly put up a bug net which turned out to be even more important b/c as soon as she blew out the lantern and settled in the mice came out to play. All night I heard scurrying, squeaking, knawing. I woke up three times convinced that they were by my head so I shot up into the sitting position and would hit at my pillow. Yenie would wake up, pat my leg and say it was okay. The next morning I saw no signs the mice had come through the net...but it was not the most restful night and now of course everyone was laughing even harder b/c the mzungu is afraid of spiders and mice (which I'm not, unless I think they are crawling on me when I sleep). Anyway, we did our work in the first village (Terrat), returned to Loiborsiret and were told that they weren't ready for us so we ran off to Orkesmut where we stayed at the guest house pictured below. I bought a bug net and had it put up (I didn't sleep with one in Terrat for two nights and we'll this place was sketchy enough I wanted one, although it turned out to be a relatively nice place).

My room in Orkesmut
Outside my room and across the way the "bathroom"

On our way out of Orkesmut we saw what was to me at the time hilarious...the gas station was powered by a gas driven generator. Dennis and I just cracked up...just so typical.
Below is a picture along our 5 hours drive back to Arusha....it wasn't a mountain range like in CO just a solitary mountain here and there, but very cool.
Finally, here is the poor chicken that one of our field memebers bought on the way home. After what I'm sure wasn't the best ride in the back of our car he became their dinner within an hour.