time to rest

Since returning from Hue, we have been non-stop, on-the-go. We had a field trip to Ha Nam province to observe their community based surveillance system for Avian Influenza. We were able to talk with some of the community health workers about their jobs, benefits, and some challenges that they face. The greatest challenge they have come up against is the fact that their are so many households to reach for monthly visits per worker, and they are unable to get to each household. We were taken on a tour of two different households: one belonged to a chicken farmer and the other to a duck farmer. We saw the chickens about three to a cage with more room than they would have had at an industrial chicken farm in the states but not much more. The chickens are kept for their eggs until they stop producing and then are sold to someone else for processing the meat. Apparently, the way you can tell if a bird has avian flu is not by any exterior body mark but by the excrement. The ducks were free to roam around in an enclosed yard/pond complex. The farmer fed them and closed them into a pen for the night, but they were largely left to their own devices.

We had presentations both Tuesday and today. The presentation Tuesday was for HIV/AIDS and involved reflecting on our previous field trip to Hai Duong. My group specifically was tasked with presenting information on the Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) portion of the Provincial AIDS Committee (PAC). That presentation was fairly straight forward. The one today was for Public Health History and was a whole lot more ambiguous. The assignment was to pick a topic in public health and compare and contrast that topic in Vietnam and the U.S. That certainly is broad. My group chose the topic of reproductive health education. In one night and the majority of today, we were able to compile and practice it sufficiently. I think it  went fairly well, but I don't really want to talk about it because I'm trying to distance myself and get some rest. If you are really interested, feel free to e-mail me.

Next Tuesday and Wednesday, we have papers due on both of those same topics, so they are re-representations of what we presented on, maybe with some added research. It has been and will be a busy week.

I am going to spend tonight reading and writing purely for pleasure purposes. It's gonna be great.