Slow Week at Work

As I mentioned before, everyone is at a conference in Palarmo. Monday almost everyone was there. Tuesday, there were three of us in the morning and two in the afternoon. Same with Wednesday. Today there were only two of us all day long. Sylvain, the other woman who's been here with me the whole week, has brought her dog, Felia, in the last two days. She's a golden retriever and really adorable. And a really good distraction. Also she's played music while we work. It's nice to have some background music but I think I've heard Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah about 100 times in the last 2 days. Sylvain has also been adamant that I don't stay until 5. She says it's too long and I'm only in Geneva for a little while and I should be gone by 3:30. She shooed me out the door yesterday when I wasn't gone by 3:45. At least for this week and next week when there's isn't too much to do, that's fine by me!

This week the other intern and I are writing a white paper on safe motherhood. Since these are about 20 pages long, we broke it into pieces. So far the section I've been writing is about obstetric fistula. I would link to it, but it's a pretty depressing topic. Basically, after prolonged labor and pressure on the pelvis, tissue between a woman's uterus and bladder dies, causing a hole. After labor women suffering from obstetric fistula pretty much perpetually leak urine and get bladder and uterine infections a lot more frequently. As if that doesn't sound terrible enough, usually their husbands leave them for another wife, one who will hopefully give birth successfully. The good news is is that this is really easy to fix...with enough money. That explains why it's usually not a problem in developed countries.

I'll link to the paper once we're done writing. So far it's been very interesting to write, but a pretty big downer. But at least it feels like real work, not just like busy work they give to interns.

I moved into my apartment today! It really nice to be out of a hostel and have a space to finally unpack my clothes and get settled in somewhere. Plus the bed's way better than the one at the hostel and the one at the hotel. Also, I won't have to deal with creepy guys lurking in the lobby now. The trip from France to my apartment to work before 9:00 am was kind of difficult. I got lost for a few minutes. But I made it and was only 10 minutes late to work...that's on time if you use Michigan Time!

Here's some pictures of the apartment from google earth. I know they don't mean too much to anyone who hasn't been to Geneva, but just to get a sense of where I live...

This is the route I take from work to the apartment. It's about a 20 minute walk. Or ten minutes by tram/bus. I like to walk though...it's nice and shaded and pretty.

Richard is a really nice guy. He's actually playing the violin right now and offered to loan me some of his books if I run out of things to read while I'm here. I probably will so that'll be nice. There's a lot about the evils of capitalism and economics, so that'd be interesting to pick up. He seems very interesting and I'm sure I'll get to know him more as I stay here longer.

I didn't get a chance to go grocery shopping today but I'm looking forward to that tomorrow. I've never really been in charge of making and doing a meal plan so I wonder how this will go. Good practice for the apartment next year though. Also, tomorrow I get to do laundry so that'll be nice! Clean clothes!! It's been a week and a half...I'm starting to run low on the basics like undies.

Well that's all for now. I'm about to enjoy my first night in a real house since the May 12th! Wooooo.

Oh I forgot to mention. We walked back from the train station to our hotel last night. We save 10 euro each by doing it. In my head I was like "It's only 3.6 miles. I do that all the time. No problem!" It was such a problem! When I walk at home I have tennis shoes on. When I walk at home, I'm not carrying a sizable purse that has my life in it because I refuse to set it down anyway. When I walk at home, I'm not in Switzerland where the sun shines as bright as possible until 8:00 pm! I was so happy to see this sign: