thin lines

I am having a hell of a week.

First, the pig. Then, last night, my computer freaked out on me -- I know, I'm really showing off my technical savviness with that description -- and I spent this evening trying to de-bug it. (A big shout-out to my technical support in Russia... the spyware advisor who loves me?)

And I've been seriously oversleeping. I chalk part of this up to the pig. (Yes, all you luckless insomniacs out there, I suffer the reverse: trauma and stress make me sleep more, not less.) I chalk the rest of this up to the plummeting temperatures at night. (I don't quite understand how or why seasonal change also makes me sleep, but I'd guess that the urge to hibernate is not absent from the human constitution.)

I dodged work Monday and Tuesday, in part to sort out the car (which is a story unto itself), and in part to just give myself a break. But I had an appointment today to join the outreach team of the clinic to which I've attached myself these past few months, so at least there was a scheduled end to my semi-self-indulgent skyvving.

I had a wonderful time with the outreach team, but I did something that would make my IRB have kittens if they found out about it. (I feel nervous even posting this...) I don't think I did anything remotely harmful, but I did do something for which I am not technically qualified. (OK, arguably, it's not clear whether I am qualified to hold a child down while a bone marrow draw is done, but I did that, too.)

The thing is, I think it's probably almost impossible to do participant-observation in clinical settings and not find oneself called upon to complete various tasks for one reason or another. I'm not picking up scalpels or prescribing drugs... I'm only performing tasks that lay (e.g., lacking formal medical education) people in this context also perform.

This is one of those moments where the researcher is really supposed to be 'not there', but between today and the week at camp for HIV+ kids, I have been very much there, doing all sort of things that make any pretense of 'non-interference' a joke. And, frankly, some of the richest data comes from being handed a task and told -- whether because people are busy, or short of hands, or just curious -- 'OK, now do this thing...'

These lines are so much fuzzier than any IRB proposal ever allows them to be, which is, itself, interesting, especially in the here-and-now of Botswana. So much more grist for the anthropological mill...