My first survey!!!

Well, it certainly was far from my first time administering a survey, but it was the first time I'd ever administered a survey I had designed and put together all by myself!

Last week my boss asked me to put together a survey/questionnaire based on a similar project conducted in high-density areas of Lusaka, Zambia. It basically follows families over a period of time, and it covers a range of issues poor households may or may not be faced with in their everyday lives - waste disposal, sanitation, access to water, access to adequate healthcare, shocks (e.g. deaths, sickness), redundancy, violation of labour rights, etc etc. Basically covering as many aspects of the lives of the poor as possible in order to identify what issues most urgently need to be addressed, and possibly make policy recommendations based on this.

I was a bit intimidated to be given this to do all by myself as I've been feeling a bit redundant in the office here, and this was a very sudden thing, and I wasn't really given much by way of a guideline. I got to it, though, and I tried to cover as much as possible without making it so long that the interviewees would get frustrated :-) It was big deal for me anyway - I felt like I had finally been given some responsibility in an area of our Basic Needs Basket programme, rather than just following others around.

As it turned out, I was more or less leading the group, and I loved it! I had to explain the the aim and purpose of the survey to the volunteers who would be administering it with me, outline what we were asking and why, and basically make thoroughly sure they understood what was expected, as they would ultimately be communicating all this to the interviewees. We chose three densely-populated areas around Lilongwe, and selected the houses at random.

It started off well - people were fairly receptive and I took plenty of photographs! The kids were predictably cute, I played peekaboo with them while they hung off the side of the car... LOL! They're adorable, the kids are one of the things I will miss most when I leave - not that we don't have kids at home, but the ones here definitely have an added... innocence or something? Maybe my perception is biased because I'm white, but they just get so excited about stuff! They were stroking my hair and giving me high-fives... it was hilarious!

So, that was the first town. The surveys themselves went without a hitch - I did notice some technical stuff I wanted to change about the way the questions were phrased, etc., but other than that it went well, and seeing as it was my first time doing anything of the sort I think it went pretty well :-)

We moved on to the second village. It was going well, just like the first one, only this time my skin, as always, caused me trouble... as I previously said, in Lilongwe especially - moreso than other Malawian cities, etc, I've been to - being white gets you a lot of attention. In most cases this is perfectly positive, as it was with the children. At other times, it's not so positive, and this was one of them. This drunk guy - there are a lot of these here - wandered over, absolutely pissed, saying he wanted to shake my hand. I looked at his hand. It was covered in some kind of yellow goo *grimace* I didn't shake his hand, but I said hello. I'm not shaking a gooey hand, thankyouverymuch.

Well, now.

He approached me on and off for the entire... I'd say, 20 minutes?... we were sitting there trying to do the survey, alternately trying to get my attention, shouting at me, asking me for money, telling me he was sick, and throwing tantrums because I was studiously ignoring him. I think he grossly underestimated my cold-shoulder-giving capabilities, because he seemed to think he could wear me down in time. Needless to say, I found him annoying, but I gave in to neither my urge to punch him in the face, nor my urge to tell him yes he was sick, but if he drank less beer he'd be doing much better. Fool. I just pretended he wasn't there, TBH, and eventually he teetered off because the locals were laughing at him and I didn't appear to hear him. Thank goodness.

Anyway - these things happen. I think I'm becoming a bit more acceptant of this kind of crap, really. Before I came here, it would have stuck with me for some time that someone had shouted at me, and genuinely left me upset. I was upset afterwards alright, but TBH I'm so used at this stage to things taking me aback that I get less disoriented by it. That's a good thing, right?

The last village was slightly less eventful than the previous two :-P not much happened besides the administering of more wonderful surveys (LOL!), BUT I did get covered in ants at one point... I was sitting on someone's front porch when I looked down, and lo and behold I'd sat on an anthill... again. (No, this is not the first time I've been covered in ants here) Cue me performing an impromptu version of Riverdance trying to get the hordes of tiny insects off my trousers... they seemed to find it amusing though, so that was good :-)And as per usual in Malawi, I had the stress of a long working day washed away by the entertainment that is wandering livestock... there was a mommy hen and her chicks wandering alongside the road, and I managed to get photos of them - they're on the Photobucket account I previously posted a link to if any of you want to look.

I'm too lazy to post the link again... *sticks out tongue*

Love you all. Even more so now because I've had wine...