The time has finally come...I am in Mexico and will be for the next three months. What am I doing here? "Field work." As part of my graduate studies, I am required to complete 400 hours of work in the field of public health. As such, I will be spending 400 hours at a desk in a ritzy neighborhood in Mexico City (DF--the Federal District). But, in all seriousness, I actually will be up to some exciting new adventures and tasks...so read on if you are so intrigued.
Yesterday I arrived in DF, after what was a relatively calm flight down--minus the small explosion on the plane before we landed. Yes, explosion. It is the rainy season down here right now, so apparently there was a lot of condensation that tiggered an electrical shortage while in flight. I was scared for my life, since the pilot didn´t actually acknowledge the loud bang and huge flash of light until about ten minutes after. All in all, I arrived relatively in-tact and after lugging my suitcase and backpack through customs to the taxi stand, I was headed to my new home.
DF is divided into 16 different "delegaciones" and then into even smaller "colonias" (neighborhoods)--think of it like New York City...you have Greenwich Village in the borough of Manhattan. Ya dig? I am living in Colonia Condesa, which is apparently Mexico City´s SoHo. I live with three Mexican girls and the Señora, who is the manager of the house. I have only met two of my housemates and they are both from the state of Sonora--Carolina, who works for the Mexican government, and Yoli, who works for the UN Population Fund (I´m jealous). I live in the garden guest quarters of the four-bedroom house, complete with my own bathroom--which likens itself to an outhouse of sorts. My room is nice and cozy, but the door doesn´t actually shut all the way, so I feel like I´m perpetually outside. But it´s cool. I´m thankful to be living there versus in the barrio at the city outskirts. I will be sure to decorate it nicely and send pictures soon.
So, the real reason I am here, to work. Today was my first day and so far, I am very impressed. I am working for Population Council in their Latin American Regional Office. The office is located in Coyoacan, one of the most cultural and lively colonias in DF and the former home of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. It is housed in a renovated mansion and is probably the coolest office I have ever seen. We even have our own security guard, Jose Luis, who also washes cars part-time outside the office gates. Pop Council is an international research NGO, based in New York City. They do work in over 60 developing countries and focus on gender, poverty, youth and reproductive health issues, as well as HIV/AIDS. My scope of work is not entirely nailed down yet, but I will mostly be working on some data analysis and dissemination of information (writing papers from the research they have collected) relating to violence against women, access to reproductive health services and human trafficking.
This organization is very well-established in the field of public health and the work I´ll be doing is right in line with my interests, so I am overwhelmingly happy to have this opportunity. There is one other intern, Lorena, who is from DF originally, but grew up in Washington State. She just got her MPH from Hopkins and both my preceptor and her boss come from Ivy League schools (big time), so I feel like a schmuck. My preceptor told me this morning that I may have the chance to travel with her a bit to the state of Guanajuato, for some focus groups and key informant interviews, and maybe even to Guatemala, as they are in the process of setting up a new project there! And some of you will be happy to know that my preceptor actually used the word "operationalize" in a sentence today. I gladly took note of that. Haha.
