lovely about it--I spent most of my time crunching numbers to figure out
where I'm going to next. I had chosen a set of likely municipalities
for my research based on data which was collected in '00/'01, but just
before I left Colorado, I received the data I need to pick cases from
the current ('07-'08) wave.
Incidentally, I've been staying at this guesthouse called "Dos Lunas,"
which has been very comfortable. It's run by a friendly Dutch guy and
his Guatemalan wife, and runs about $30/night for a room with a shared
bathroom (less for a single). Not the cheapest place down here, but not
camping accommodations, either. And much more pleasant than either of
the worn-feeling places I stayed at in downtown Guatemala City last year.
Dos Lunas is about five minutes from the airport. Unfortunately, the
Airport is a long way off from anything else, and there's nothing
interesting in the immediate environs, although a National Police
barracks is right next door (I awoke this morning to the sound of some
gentleman shouting numbers through a megaphone), and you can see the
volcano Pacaya as you walk by the Police camp's fútbol field.
The good news for today:
1. I had no trouble getting a refill for my Guatemalan cell phone (from
Telefonica, the Spanish company--I get a kick out of the fact that my
sister has the same service in Europe).
2. I also was able to get the video chat working on my computer to talk
to Emily (my wife). Really nice. And free. Hopefully, I didn't gum up
the internet here too badly in the process.
The bad news:
1. I'm really struggling with a great deal of missing data in my
Guatemalan forestry survey dataset. I'll be meeting with some academic
colleagues of Krister (my advisor) on Wed., so hopefully, I'll be able
to get some of those problems squared away. It's difficult to get
statistically significant results when missing data brings you down to
30 or 35 observations.
2. I think the place which makes the most sense for me to go next is
Antigua--the Disneyland of Guatemala. It's a comfortable place to stay,
but authentic, it's not. It is, however, a very short distance from at
least three of the cases in the Guatemalan survey data which would be
good case studies, and given that I have to be back in Guatemala city
for the beginning of next week, it might be the most logical.
3. I busted a pair of headphones somehow yesterday on the plane. I'll
have to be on the lookout for a new pair.
No comments:
Post a Comment