Malagasy Culture for the win

Malagasy Bull-Riding

view from our tent

Jump roping with kids

one of my good friends

grasshopper that was huuuugee

Hey all,

Stuff in madagascar is going really well.  We just got back from a 9 day trip to our third (of three) villages.  9 days I realized is a really long time to spend without 1) electricity 2) running water 3) toilets 4) heating (it's cold here now).

It was a really amazing experience though and after being there for 3 or 4 days, we basically were no longer outsiders to this village.  The village (by Malagasy standards) was really rich and many people owned radios, 3 storied houses, and one person owned a satellite TV and a generator!

Our tents were set up right next to 3 houses in the village and we had a view of this beautiful hill and then a really big valley.

Research is going well, we collected all the data that we wanted and we will basically be spending the rest of the time here doing data entry (because we couldn't use our computers to do data entry while there).

We were invited to a "new-house party" while at the village where we watched Malagasy bull-riding.  At the end of the bull riding, the owner of the new house got a cup of water, walked over to the Zebu (type of cow) that he wanted to slaughter and poured the cup of water on it.  They then commenced the slaughtering, which was fascinating to watch.

Overall, working in the villages was a really amazing cultural experience that I would never get as a tourist or otherwise

Best,

Ian

It's my last week in Milan! Last weekend, I met my friend Kerri in Bucharest, Romania.  The trip was completely random, but I had a great time.  Our hostel was a huge old mansion in the nicest part of town.  I was kind of surprised that stray dogs really are everywhere (which I had read prior to my trip but didnt realize the extent), but the pups are friendly and just trot alongside visitors without bothering anyone.  

For the rest of this week, I will be working with Silvia on a primary cell culture project.  We are studying microglia and astrocytes with different hormone treatments with groups separated by time and gender.  Silvia was generous enough to teach me and two other students how to harvest the cells for this type of experiment.  I went to happy hour with a bunch of the younger lab workers on our floor last night, and our whole lab went to a nice Sicilian restaurant today to celebrate the two other students passing their exams and the end of IRES. 

After that, I'll be off to Portugal to visit Eurico at his house in Lisbon!  Then I am meeting Maite in Madrid before I head back to the US!  I am so glad I lived in an international dorm because I have made so many friends that I can visit all over Europe. 

Forgetting my camera cord on this trip has been a nuisance, so as soon as Kerri uploads her photos, Ill be able to get you some pictures of Bucharest.

-Megan

A Prize-Winning Weekend

Hello all,
Sorry it has been a while since my last post. I was battling a bad cold last week and spent most of my time in the lab or in bed. My lab work has been going great, however, and I have been scrambling to get as much done as possible before I have to leave. It's so hard to believe that it has already been 8 weeks. Just the rest of this week and next before my time in the lab comes to a close. I know it will be really difficult for me to leave. I have become quite attached and invested in my project. Also, I know it will be hard to leave behind such a a great city. Cambridge has definitely treated me well. 

Despite a rough start to the week, battling a cold, I had an excellent weekend. On Friday night, I went with the other summer student in my lab and her program mates to see The Dark Knight Rises. We went to a showing at 9:50 pm because all of the earlier shows were sold out and we didn't get out of the theater until 1:00! But the movie was amazing and a great start to the weekend. 
On Saturday I did some shopping at Cambridge city center. I bought a Cambridge sweatshirt and coffee mug. I had a delicious crepe and read a magazine under a tree in the park--the weather was beautiful (finally!). Then that night I joined the PhD student I work with, the other summer student in the lab, and a collaborator from Germany at my professor's house for dinner. And as an amazingly special surprise, Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan joined us for dinner. He's only the 2009 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, no big deal! I cannot even describe how incredibly great it was to sit around the dinner table with such great scientists, including a Nobel Prize winner. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and will definitely be one of the most memorable moments of my entire summer. "Venki", as he liked to be called, was so down to earth and had a great sense of humor. He took an interest in each of our backgrounds and I realized that I had so much to connect with him about. My PI at Emory worked in his lab as a postdoc and he even came to Emory to give a talk before I joined the lab. He is also from the same place in India as my family and lived in Ohio, where I am from, for quite a while. I enjoyed chatting with him and the rest of the dinner guests
On Sunday, I traveled to Brighton with the other summer student in my lab and her program mates. The weather was beautiful and sunny and a perfect day to go to the beach. Brighton is a coastal city along the English Channel, featuring a pebble beach, which is quite unique. We walked along the beach and enjoyed the sights. It was too cold to go swimming, but perfect to dip our feet in and enjoy the sun. We also explored the pier and had some seafood. Later, we ventured to the Royal Pavilion, which is a huge palace that used to be a "pleasure home" for the royals. It was built by King George IV and was basically the royals' version of a summer home. It was extravagantly decorated and breathtakingly beautiful. After our visit to the Pavilion, our day was almost over. But before heading back to Cambridge for the night, we enjoyed a "gaufre", a.k.a. the most delicious dessert ever. It was a crispy waffle topped with strawberry syrup, strawberries and vanilla ice cream. It was the perfect end to such a beautiful day. Seeing the sun after such a long time was so refreshing. 

Pebble Beach

Large Donut?

The Royal Pavilion

Gaufre, yummmm

This week, I am back in the lab trying hard to make some more progress on my project before I must leave. The weather is too gorgeous to be indoors all the time, however, so we have planned a lab punting trip on Thursday. We will be spending the day out on the River Cam with some champagne and strawberries. It should be really fun and I'm excited.  Nisha

10 weeks already??

Hey all!

It's already time for me to wrap up everything in my lab down under! Last week I went on a home visit for the NICU study and was able to observe a 6-month-old infant and mother pair perform the still face procedure, a free play session, and an interview to measure maternal reflective functioning. It was really great to observe the procedures and finally meet all the people whose voices I've heard on every recording. They only have two or three more participants to run before the study is complete, so I'm busily trying to get through as many still face procedures as possible before Friday (my last day!). Tomorrow morning the lab is having a goodbye tea for me - while I can't believe I have fewer than five days left, I am truthfully very excited about the array of Aussie delicacies that will be served (e.g. Tim Tams and Lamingtons, delicious).

I spent my last weekend in Brisvegas entirely completing my sight-seeing to do list! I spent all day Saturday at the Australia Zoo - a must see sight if you're anywhere near Brisbane or the Sunshine Coast. Even more so than seeing heaps of crocodile shows and hearing more "crickey"s than I'd ever dreamed, my favorite part of the zoo was the elephant feeding - how often do you get to opportunity to hand a kiwi or carrot over to an elephant's trunk? Enough said.

My new lunch pal

Not sure I'd want to see this in the wild.

Sunday morning I ran a race benefitting research at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital and spent the rest of the gorgeous day wandering markets, restaurants, and the Brisbane Powerhouse. The day culminated in an entertaining (and free!) comedy show at the Powerhouse and a very early bedtime (sightseeing's a lot of work!).

Another Australian race to add to the list :)

In all it was a fantastic way to spend my final weekend in this great city. My parents arrive in Brisbane tomorrow and on Saturday we head up to Cairns and eventually down to Sydney before making our way back to the States. I'm so glad I've saved these exciting trips for the end of my Aussie adventure - otherwise it would have been impossible to get me away from Brisbane. And of course, once I'm with my parents I don't think any citizenship alterations will be in my future, so I suppose I'll be back at Emory before I know it!

Cheers!

Hello hello! Things have been super busy the past couple of weeks. Our PI came down for a week so we had several meetings and presentations with clinics, doctors, NGOs, etc. We have developed an advisory board for the longitudinal study and it is comprised of 3 pediatricians from Bolivia who are responsible for reviewing our study and protecting the rights of study participants. When I told her about my interest in pediatrics, one of the pediatricians informed me of a program comprised of American medical students completing rotations at a nearby pediatric hospital and gave me the contact information to get in touch with them. Turns out they're not medical students, but pre-med students from all over the US gaining shadowing experience in pediatric hospitals all around La Paz! So I joined them for a lecture on tuberculosis last Tuesday night and then shadowed for a few hours on Wednesday morning. It was an awesome experience and the doctors at Hospital del Nino are really passionate about teaching, so I'm hoping to return whenever I have down time!

Hospital Corea, one of the health centers we have been working with

Entrance to another health center, Centro de Salud Los Andes

Project wise, we are working on our educational materials for the clinics. Last week we visited the clinics and spoke with the nurses, doctors, nutritionists, and mothers about what could be improved as far as nutrition and vitamin counseling. Lack of time and educational materials are huge barriers to getting mothers to understand the importance of proper nutrition and micronutrient supplementation. We are taking all of this information and using it to develop a culturally appropriate curriculum to be used by clinics, hospitals, NGOs, etc. I can't believe we only have 3 weeks left of our work here, but I'm also excited for all that we have left to do.

Coroico!

This weekend we escaped to Coroico for warm weather and I got to wear shorts for the first time this summer. (That alone was worth the 3 hour bus ride) We visited the Afro-Bolivian village of Tocana, walked through coca fields, and ate mandarins off of trees as mosquitoes and gnats fed on us. The bus ride there was pretty scary as the road was one lane, unpaved, and I had to close my eyes whenever we passed a car coming from the opposite direction. 

Best soccer field ever

Our tour guide walking us through coca fields

It's crazy to think now I only have two weekends left in Bolivia- but I have to admit, visiting Coroico reminded me how much I miss warm weather/Atlanta...I'm even thankful for the bug bites.

Lauren

Hi everyone,

I cant believe that it has been over 2 months since I left the US.  Italy is still fantastic, and I enjoy working at the University of Milan.  I am actually switching projects for the last two weeks of my time here to help finish some work on the EAE (experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis) model of Multiple Sclerosis.  Much of the work is similar but it is a nice change that has allowed me to learn new techniques.

Last weekend, Kristen and I visited Zurich and Lucerne, Switzerland.  Zurich is one of the greatest cities that I have gotten to visit thus far, and I am so glad we decided to meet there.  Conveniently, Zurich is exactly half way between Heidelberg and Milan so it was the perfect set up.  We had time to go hiking on Sunday afternoon and just made it back to the train station before a huge hail storm moved into the area.

Here is a photo I snapped on the way down from Mount Rigi -- you can see Mount Pilatus and a little bit of the town, Goldau, in the background.

Next weekend, I am meeting up with one of the friends I made earlier this summer.  Kerri and some of her friends from Glasgow  (where she goes to Uni) are traveling for two months so I am meeting them in Bucharest!  Of all places, Bucharest is pretty random, but it was the only weekend I could meet them and I am excited to visit Eastern Europe.

Talk to you soon,

Megan

Last days in Deutschland

All is going well here in Germany. The last two weeks there was a workshop for our collaborators in Cote d'Ivoire and so there were lots of lectures on lab techniques and projects going on at RKI, but sadly they were mostly in French...
I sat in on a few to watch and learned that lab words are pretty much in the same in German, French and English, so that is convenient. I feel like my knowledge about lab work has increased exponentially and my ability to make independent and educated decisions about how to carry out research becomes better every day. My project is done for the moment, so I have been working on other projects just to learn more skills and have a better understanding of all the things one can do with molecular biology. It's really cool to learn what the others are doing and I am so glad I have had the chance to work with this amazing group of people.

Last weekend I was in Lübben, which is in the Spreewald and I camped there with an old family friend who lives in Dresden. It was so relaxing to escape the hussle and bussle of Berlin and see some greenery for a bit. We grilled over the fire, hiked 16km around the lake and canoed for a bit. It was a really nice break. But now that I'm back in Berlin and only have 2 weeks left, I have to make the most of it!
Tonight a friend of mine from lab and I went to beach bar which is Jamaican themed and experienced the reggae scene. It was so funny to just stumble across this cultural island in the middle of Berlin.

I haven't been taking enough pictures, but I will get better about that! I hope everyone else is having an awesome time!

bis gleich!

Summer in Germany..at least I don't have to worry about tan lines

Spreewald

Picking some mushrooms for dinner!

Our fabulous set up

Kristen