The last few weeks have been extremely busy with work. My first assignment in Nampula is to co-supervise a survey of a 20,000 member farmers cooperative. The first week and a half a colleague and I ran between three offices editing the survey to the liking of various partners, all of which have different perspectives and goals for it. Eventually we whittled it down from seven pages to two surveys of two pages each, both much more focused and objective than the original.
In parallel we tried to work out logistics, like arranging a car, getting money in advance to pay food and lodging expenses, scheduling meetings with associations and forums (comprised of 5-15 associations), and coordinating with field technicians.
Finally on 29/03/11 we got into the field with our three survey takers. We traveled approximately 700km over six days almost entirely on awful dirt roads and what seemed to be goat trails. It can take two hours to go less than 50km. We have to hit nine districts (like counties) in three weeks, about 29 forums, 282 associations, and 30 women´s groups.
Travel takes a toll, driving sometimes six hours a day on jarring roads, sweating in 90-100º heat, sleeping 4-6 hours in whatever lodging is available, often not eating lunch. Once, before heading to Moma from Angoche, we asked a man we on the road which of two possible routes was better. Not accustomed to speaking Portuguese, and wanting to sound formal, he said, "There is a discussion about the bridge on that route," ie "We don´t know if the bridge still exists." We elected the other route, which involved one earthen bridge and crossing a stream.
On the other hand, it´s great talking to the farmers, seeing so much of rural Nampula Province, getting to know my four colleagues, speaking Portuguese almost exclusively, eating incredible seafood, going places foreigners or even most Mozambicans never go. The task is daunting, but it´s much better than sitting around at my last job wondering when I would next have something to do.
On Friday we head out again, for around 10 days, to hopefully finish the survey. After that analyzing the data and writing reports and catching up on work that should´ve been done but was over which the survey took precedence.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Osukuru!
2 comments:
Hey Andrew! Your new job sounds exhaustingly amazing... I hope you guys continue to choose the roads with functioning bridges :) Good luck!
Yeah the job´s great. I just posted the conclusion, though I see there´s some overlap. And the car troubles never ended...
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