Finally at Home

         Finally … Africa! After days of preparation work in the sheltered and beautiful Umhlanga area, on Tuesday we stepped out of our holiday in the sun, and into what I had been missing. There were people all over. There was laughter, goods sold on the street, chicken heads frying, chickens running around, a periodic goat, music too loud for the hour, and an epic soccer game going on in the center of it all.

            We commenced our fieldwork with field-testing in Inanda, a settlement outside of Durban. It felt like home from the moment we entered. Unlike Paraguay, however, I could not understand a word. Nevertheless, I loved it. People waved, the community had a beat, and suddenly the greater purpose behind our project became a reality. Suddenly I connected with a local community I was prepared to serve.

            But however at home I felt, the community was shocked to see me strolling in so casually. Many children screamed in Zulu, “Hi white!”, and unabashedly ran closer to check out my shoes before running away again. Only 20 minutes away from the widely white and well-off neighborhood we are living in, we found ourselves the only white people in sight.

And so, braced with our tablets loaded with surveys and partnered with a newly trained lead enumerator from the University of Kwazulu-Natal, we began going house to house, knocking with clicks in our mouths, and asking about cooking practices and Wonderbag use in the township.

            The purpose of field-testing is to ensure that the final survey asks the right questions in a way that gets the needed answers in a culturally sensitive and easily understood manner. It gives us time to work out the kinks in the survey, figure out the important data, and design and test-implementation of the best deployment methods once implementation begins.

            The first few days have gone well. People on average are very responsive and willing to take the survey. The enumerators are all very skilled, and a lot of fun to talk to between surveys. Two days in and we have learned a lot. The survey is well on its way to completion, and I cannot wait to explore other areas that better represent the reality of South Africa. The beach is nice, but each day I am reminded that I am happier visiting the houses of the people that make up this great place!

All the Berkeley girls!

Berkeley and Enumerators