Up from the Valley

I am just recovering from a valley. Woo, the last three days have been the most extreme dip (rapid down and up) I've encountered during my time working in Laos.

I have just three days of work remaining to wrap up my project into a tidy package to hand over to CARE Lao and the University of Health Sciences. But our last technical meeting on Wednesday only offered up more questions than answers. Questions that made me anxious: reconsidering the objectives of the assessment, the purpose of it all...with huge ramifications for study design, etc. Pushback from different partners to do more than our power or resources would allow.

But I encouraged UHS to take a position today and luckily, they did. I do have to redraft some portions of the protocol and questionnaire, but all in all, I can leave the project in a good place. Phew!!

Here are photos of CARE Lao's end-of-the-year party yesterday. Plenty of food and drink, birthday cake for the October-December birthdays, frantic wrapping of presents for the gift exchange, and Lam Vong dance around the table!