Where has the time gone?

I really can’t believe almost 6 months have gone by since I arrived back in South Africa and first began working at m2m. It especially does not seem like the Holiday season here, as the incredibly warm weather and lack of Christmas commercialism (at least in comparison to the States) can make a person nearly forget what time of the year it is.

These past 2 weeks have been very busy in the office. Last week, Nzwaki was visiting from East London (she’s based at the Innovation Center in East London and we’ve spent quite a bit of time with working with each other over the past months) to work with Monica and me on wrapping up the Baby HIV Test Study. To remind you, the Baby Study is the first study to take place at the Innovation Center, which is a group of 10 sites where m2m can pilot and evaluate new initiatives before rolling out new protocols to all 600 sites. This particular study aims to see whether Active Client Follow Up activities (phone calls and home visits) help increase testing for babies (a major drop-off point in the PMTCT care continuum). The study is also trying to elucidate what the major barriers to testing are, and to evaluate the cost of ACFU activities in relation to beneficial outcomes. I’m really happy I’ve been able to become more involved in the study and am glad I’m getting the opportunity to learn about different kinds of research other than just what goes on in the lab. I’ve been sifting through our final database and working on all the analyses (and learning a ton about Excel in the process, haha!), and when we come back in January I’ll get to jump into the writing stage of things. It’s been really fun to work with Nzwaki and Monica on this project and I’m excited to see how it turns out. And it was really nice to have Nzwaki in the office last week – too bad she’s based in East London!

Last Friday everyone in the office had the afternoon off for the annual office Holiday party. This year it was hosted at the castle across the street from the office. (Yes, there is a castle in Cape Town. For your history lesson, it was built from 1666-1679 by the Dutch East India Company and is the oldest surviving building in South Africa.). After an inspirational office-wide meeting where Gene presented all of the year’s progress (expansions, number of women reached, famous people who visited, etc.), we all walked over to the castle and enjoyed a lovely sit-down lunch together. It always takes a while to adjust to a new environment and workplace, so it’s nice to realize that I finally feel like I really fit in the m2m community. I’m just glad my upcoming trip home isn’t the end of things and that I get to come back after Christmas – the longer stay, the more excited I get about our projects and the more I value my time here, so I feel very fortunate in that respect.

Yes, it’s that time of year when it’s impossible not to sit back and reflect on how fortunate I am to have access to the opportunities I’ve had. Living here, where millions of people are faced with a very different reality, really puts things even more in perspective. And here’s a shameless plug – if you want to make a holiday donation this year, consider donating to m2m! :)

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone at home in just a few short days! More to come in January once I return…

View of the castle courtyard where we had our holiday lunch


A good crowd!


Nzwaki and me