This morning after my breakfast of banana bread, banana pancakes, sausage, and pineapple juice, I was ready to go! I was super stoked to help Dr. Hanson in the gene bank. But, when I got down there she began to tell me that she wanted me to focus on my project and not just do busy work. She wanted me to get everything I could out of ILRI and Ethiopia. She didn't want me to have the 'free time' that I was having. So, she brought me to her office and she began to look at the questions I had created. She asked me what I thought about adding nutrition and economics to the picture. I worry about the economics (mainly because numbers and I don't go well together!) and how I was going to wrap that into my project. But, this is now a challenge. Before, my topics were not challenging me. Dr. Hanson wants to challenge me and make my time meaningful. So, that's what I'm going to do.
She had me sit down with the data I already had from the database and make a table with the Farm Name, Location, No. of Milking Cows, No. of Calves, and Avg. Milk Yield. This table would allow me to figure out the large, rich farms compared to the smaller, poor farms. She said this would help to figure out which ones to visit and which ones I wanted to focus on for my research paper. I am so glad I have this guidance now. This is what I have been needing this whole time. She said so herself, this is the guidance they should of been giving me upstairs. I can't even begin tell you how much better I feel with someone 'on my side'.
We went to lunch together and I had lasagna with potatoes wedges. They really like to put potatoes with almost every meal at the cafeteria even if it doesn't really go with! After that, we came back and Dr. Hanson helped Hannah and I get in contact with Dr. Azage to set up a time to visit smallholder farms. She also helped me create my questionnaire that will help me in writing my final research paper.
I am so glad that she is helping us make our time meaningful and so much more worth it. Today was the day that I actually felt on track with what I am doing. I feel confident about my questions and I am very ready to visit Debre Zeit again tomorrow! Once I have some data from the questions I will share them with you! I can't thank y'all enough for following me on the highs and helping to keep my morale up on lows!
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