So Saturday I endeavored to acquire a cell phone. Since I’ll be on the road a lot, I want to make it easy for people to reach me. And make phone calls to the States without dealing with finding hotels or wifi for Skyping (which I’m not holding my breath for in places like Tadjikistan).
We stopped at a few stores that are a lot like a Sprint or T-Mobile stores back home. Then they took me to “Tsum.” I will post a photo of it soon (sorry, spaced on bringing the digital with me to the wifi cafe). There were probably 10,000 cell phones on display, and hundreds of people shopping for them. The cell is a big status symbol here. I was picking out very ordinary, bottom-of-the line, practical ones, and my friends were vetoing them left and right.
Cell phones are also expensive here. Nor do you get a monthly plan with a pre-determined calling level and rate. You have to go to a special store that gives out SIM cards and cell phone numbers, and register your phone there. Then you buy a card with some amount of tenge (the local currency), which you load onto your phone and gets translated into minutes. You can fill your phone either in person at the main store, through one of their "Bankomats" (not a tough one to figure out--ATM machine), or continue to buy the cards at any kiosk or store. Much simpler process in the states.
The good ones that people covet run about $600 to $800. Average salary here is $750. You do the math. Then you buy cards and load your minutes onto the phone, at about $0.25 per minute.
So now I’ve got me a styling hot pink phone that takes pictures and also can listen to the radio and a bunch of other features I’ll likely never use. It kicks my phone’s ass back home. Looks like I upgraded my phone in Kazakhstan! That I never expected.
Tonight we went out with a bunch of Anara’s work friends. Shashleek, similar to shish-kebab is big here. See the forthcoming pics of the presentation. Some were lamb, others beef, still others pork and even fish. Mine were stuffed with eggplant, tomato, and other veggies. Yum yum.
I also watched 6 people (4 of whom were women) consume 2 bottles of cognac. It was Kazakstani ccognac, and quite good, actually. But I had forgotten just how much people drink here. Everyone gets a healthy shot of the beverage, you toast, and everyone shoots the entire shot. Lather, rinse, repeat. I guess they thought I was a fuddy-duddy drinking wine, but I don’t need a hangover just yet. I had Georgian wine, which was quite tasty.
If my Kyrgyzstan visa comes through Monday morning, Monday afternoon I’m on a plane to Bishek, then to Karakol via driver. After about a week there working with their MCH/RH coordinator, I’ll be off to Tadjikistan to see a MCH training take place over three weeks. The typical training trains a “healthy birth and infant” team that are comprised of obs, midwives, neonatal nurse specialists, and one more provider that I've forgotten. They get trained in essential maternal and newborn care for uncomplicated births via WHO-accredited trainers, and are taught to practice evidence-based delivery care with minimal medical intervention. We gather baseline data of the provider birth practices, then data at least every 6 months on provider practices after the training. To help validate the provider-centered data, we also ask new mothers to fill out a questionnaire about their experience in the maternal hospital. We’re coming up the completion of the third data collection, which I’ll be spot-checking and analyzing to see whether our training and other health care interventions (I’ll talk about them later) have an effect on the indicators we’re interested in (process-related, such as evidence-based practices, as well as outcome related, such as reduction in stillbirths).
I can’t wait to hit the road! Almaty is great, but I want to see as much as I can of Central Asia while I’m here.
We stopped at a few stores that are a lot like a Sprint or T-Mobile stores back home. Then they took me to “Tsum.” I will post a photo of it soon (sorry, spaced on bringing the digital with me to the wifi cafe). There were probably 10,000 cell phones on display, and hundreds of people shopping for them. The cell is a big status symbol here. I was picking out very ordinary, bottom-of-the line, practical ones, and my friends were vetoing them left and right.
Cell phones are also expensive here. Nor do you get a monthly plan with a pre-determined calling level and rate. You have to go to a special store that gives out SIM cards and cell phone numbers, and register your phone there. Then you buy a card with some amount of tenge (the local currency), which you load onto your phone and gets translated into minutes. You can fill your phone either in person at the main store, through one of their "Bankomats" (not a tough one to figure out--ATM machine), or continue to buy the cards at any kiosk or store. Much simpler process in the states.
The good ones that people covet run about $600 to $800. Average salary here is $750. You do the math. Then you buy cards and load your minutes onto the phone, at about $0.25 per minute.
So now I’ve got me a styling hot pink phone that takes pictures and also can listen to the radio and a bunch of other features I’ll likely never use. It kicks my phone’s ass back home. Looks like I upgraded my phone in Kazakhstan! That I never expected.
Tonight we went out with a bunch of Anara’s work friends. Shashleek, similar to shish-kebab is big here. See the forthcoming pics of the presentation. Some were lamb, others beef, still others pork and even fish. Mine were stuffed with eggplant, tomato, and other veggies. Yum yum.
I also watched 6 people (4 of whom were women) consume 2 bottles of cognac. It was Kazakstani ccognac, and quite good, actually. But I had forgotten just how much people drink here. Everyone gets a healthy shot of the beverage, you toast, and everyone shoots the entire shot. Lather, rinse, repeat. I guess they thought I was a fuddy-duddy drinking wine, but I don’t need a hangover just yet. I had Georgian wine, which was quite tasty.
If my Kyrgyzstan visa comes through Monday morning, Monday afternoon I’m on a plane to Bishek, then to Karakol via driver. After about a week there working with their MCH/RH coordinator, I’ll be off to Tadjikistan to see a MCH training take place over three weeks. The typical training trains a “healthy birth and infant” team that are comprised of obs, midwives, neonatal nurse specialists, and one more provider that I've forgotten. They get trained in essential maternal and newborn care for uncomplicated births via WHO-accredited trainers, and are taught to practice evidence-based delivery care with minimal medical intervention. We gather baseline data of the provider birth practices, then data at least every 6 months on provider practices after the training. To help validate the provider-centered data, we also ask new mothers to fill out a questionnaire about their experience in the maternal hospital. We’re coming up the completion of the third data collection, which I’ll be spot-checking and analyzing to see whether our training and other health care interventions (I’ll talk about them later) have an effect on the indicators we’re interested in (process-related, such as evidence-based practices, as well as outcome related, such as reduction in stillbirths).
I can’t wait to hit the road! Almaty is great, but I want to see as much as I can of Central Asia while I’m here.
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