Crystal’s Adventures

Sorry I haven’t written as much as I would have liked. I have had to borrow my co-worker’s laptop, because the one I checked out from work before I left is apparently not configured for our hotel’s wireless. Arrgh.

Today (Sunday) is our first day off. I slept in and met the group for a late breakfast buffet. There are several restaurants in the hotel to give us plenty of variety, and the food is delicious. I’m trying to taste all the Nigerian food I can while I’m here. There is a running track and a beautiful gym. The hotel is certainly one of the nicest I’ve ever stayed in. I feel very spoiled with all the luxury. We had fresh fruit and birds of paradise flowers in our rooms when we checked in, compliments of the manager who the FHI team has befriended. Yesterday I had a lunch of grilled tiger prawns by the pool and pizza delivered to my room for dinner. Pizza on a white linen tablecloth and silver tray, delivered by the waiter who calls me “Madame”!

The work we’re doing is pretty easy so far but extremely important for the study drug. For the first three days, we carefully went through thousands of lab requisition forms from one of the study sites to make sure that the HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhea test results were correctly recorded in the logs and in the database. The last couple of days we’ve been ensuring that the informed consent booklets and signatures are all in order, and that the illiterate participants were assigned a participant advocate. Very important for research ethics.

The study staff (Nigerians) and all of the other Nigerians I’ve met so far are really nice. I bought some beautiful African cloth. A secretary at one of the clinics we visited yesterday sold it to me. We can’t go outside the hotel, but we can go some places with our driver (named Fatai) and the study coordinator, named “O2″. The traffic is crazy and driving would probably give the average person a heart attack, but not me. It is humid here, and the air is thick with exhaust fumes and interesting organic odors - the kind that makes the primitive part of your brain perk up, heightens your senses and compels you to scan the horizon for predators. (haha) The African sun is as bright and hot as I remember. I am African in my heart. It’s like returning home.

Hope you are all well. I’ll write again when I can.