Work Hard, Play Hard

February 2, 2012 - It has been an interesting few days, chugging along at work and getting to know how things work and also enjoying the festival at night. (Or in the morning, like on the 1^st when fireworks and music started at 4 a.m., although I can’t really say I enjoyed it).

Had an interesting conversation today with Angie about how the integration between micro-finance and health can be messy. She put it quite well, that when you try to talk in health terms like quality of care, the majority of Pro Mujer staff (even in the health department) talk in “the language of micro-finance” with costs, risk, return, and sustainability being their number one priority. Which is an interesting perspective, not right or wrong, just interesting. It seems Pro Mujer, like many micro-finance organizations I’ve read about, is still struggling to find that balance. Pro Mujer was started with a broader social goal than just micro-finance, so it’s health focus is not new per se, but it is definitely secondary. For example, the micro-finance side have dozens of staff while health has two. I’m hoping that my work will help contribute to a better understanding of how successful (or not) the health side is and what improvements can be made.

Another interesting thing I noticed is that in my epidemiology research I have been looking for information specific to Peru or atleast Latin America. Today my supervisor said he is less worried about context/culture specificity and more worried about evidence-based medicine. So I guess he’d rather try to adapt an idea that has worked in another country and is well documented than go with an idea that only has one small study backing it up but is context specific. Again, not sure the right answer, but tucking it away to think about later. Maybe like everything you need a balance.

Also wanted to share this link with pictures of the festival yesterday. This was the most religious day, where the Virgen is paraded into the streets.