Surveys and more

Hello! It’s been a while but I think I have some good stuff to share!  We were very busy getting ready for the surveys, and it went really well last week. We had three days in the villages and it was great! It’s awesome to finally be out there accomplishing everything we’ve been working on. I feels pretty good!

But the stress levels have come back up since last Thursday as we have started to shift our focus to our next project—Sprinkles.  Since the surveys were underway and we felt confident that everything was going well we started looking forward to November. We were finally able to get a meeting with the head nutrition specialist at UNICEF last Friday in Kigali and it went REALLY well! We were worried that they weren’t going to want our research, but they are very supportive! We will be going forward with our focus groups in 2-4 districts of Rwanda in the last 2 weeks of November. So we spent the weekend doing research and trying to wrap our heads around this important research. I will write more about it soon.

We went out to the villages again today and tried to get some work done in the bus while the students were doing their surveys but it’s difficult! I have a lot of pictures to share so I’ll get started...

The team in Kigali. This is the main round about in the city. We spend most of our time in this area. 

this is a picture Kathy took while on her moto. That’s me and Gurjeet in front of her! The next picture is me on a bike in Kibungo. It’s my second favourite mode of transport in Rwanda. We use these if we’re in a hurry in Kibungo to get from one side of town to the other. The bike ride lasts for about 7 minutes (up and down some pretty big hills) and costs 40 cents...

These pictures were taken at the Rwanda Educational Expo where Sung Kyu had a booth to present his compost machine. That is it painted in the Rwandan colours. This is one of the interventions he came up with to improve the agriculture techniques and food security in Ngoma district. Composting doesn’t really exist here so this would be a great way for farmers to get organic fertilizer. The machine will be set up at INATEK for some further research before trying to market it to farmers.

We went to Tanzania a few weeks ago! We were going to the border to see the Rusomo Falls, but the guard let us cross into Tanzania even though we didn’t have our passports! He said we had 10 minutes, but we took about 40 and had drinks and took pictures in Tanzania. It was lovely! 

Happy as a clam in Tanzania

Kathy, Eric, Obed, Gurjeet, me and Sung Kyu in Tanzania with Rwanda in the background

On the bridge between Rwanda and Tanzania--Rusomo Falls behind us.

We’ve met a few other muzungus in Kibungo, and we were invited over to dinner last week by one American girl. She has been in Kibungo for 1 year and 9 months on a Peace Corps mission. She lives in a tiny little house and we made sushi! I couldn’t believe it! It was delicious. We also had spring rolls, tea and fresh pineapple (bought directly from the pineapple farmers in the field) for dessert.

Speaking of dinners...the next one was taken on Sung Kyu's last night. The guys from the old survey team took us all out for a big dinner at Chez Theophile. They ordered for everyone--2 giant Tilapia from Lake Victoria. The fish came out on 2 big platters fully intact with roasted potatoes and fried bananas on the side. As you can see everyone just dug in with the fingers! (A waiter came by with a basin of water for hand washing first, don't worry). I was hesitant to eat this way at first and opted for a fork, but then I joined in :)

I took this picture while getting some work done on INATEK campus. All of the buildings are brick, but those are just small buildings to store chairs...I'll get more pictures of the campus another day.

This is the school and the church that are right beside St-Joseph. Behind these buildings is the orphanage and to the right is a big soccer field.

Power outages have become more frequent lately. There are no generators so it's very dark and the stars become more visible and the restaurant uses candles--it's very nice.

A few different houses...

Cow house--barn?

In one of the villages the kids were carrying around these bugs in their hands. Apparently they come out in the rainy season, and the kids cherish them and eat them alive...they were quite large and squirmy!

A woman carrying mangoes

Survey Day 2- Lake Sake (sah-kay)

 

Some locals took us out on a fishing boat and we jumped in from it. It was wonderful and warm. 

A crowd of people watching us swim

Bosco, Kathy and me in Lake Sake

The next few pictures were all taken of kids looking in at us while we waited in the villages. They LOVE seeing their pictures on the camera screen. 

 I think this picture was taken on the first day. We had gone for a walk through the village and then ended up back near the bus and were all of a sudden surrounded by kids!

The Field Work Begins!

Things are going really well! We’ve been out all day yesterday and today so I don’t really feel like writing much. Instead I will make a photo blog. More to come!

1.       This is the courtyard of St-Joseph. This is just outside my room looking towards the restaurant. I’ll try to take a video soon!

2.       Day 1 of surveying in Kazo Sector. This is my team: Violette and Obed.

      This is our whole team minus Bosco. We had a stranger take the picture and he had a hard time trying to fit everyone in. That’s why everyone is laughing!

 Cloudy sky! It’s been raining every day. Not ideal for surveying in villages. We almost got stuck in a village the first day because it was so hilly. The bus was fish tailing all over and i was worried we would go right into a house. But we managed after half of the bus got out to push!

5.    

   

6.    This is a very common scene as we drive through the villages! I took it from inside the bus so it’s a bit blurry.

    This is what happens when we stop and they catch up to the bus. They will just stare through the windows until you do something. No one knew rock paper scissors so I decided to entertain with the camera.

                            Then I got in the picture J

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We had 2 friends over  for dinner last night to celebrate. They were very excited to be able to celebrate ‘Canadian Thanksgiving’ with us. We had our usual buffet dinner at the restaurant but there was spaghetti so that was a treat. We also bought a loaf of bread and ordered the “special omelette”. It’s just like an omelette at home in that it has peppers, onions and cheese in it--The Rwandan touch is the addition of beef and French fries...special indeed! Dessert was fresh pineapple and Rwandan cake (kind of dry and not very sweet...but still delicious). 

I will post a picture here soon...

The blog post below is new too! And i have a few more stories in progress to post later today or tomorrow :)

Week 3

Busy busy busy! We’re getting down to crunch time so there has been lots to do! We have officially made our team or students from INATEK and we had 2 meetings with them last week. There are 8 INATEK students: 3 are from the previous team in May, there are 3 girls, and 3 or 4 of the students are from the Faculty of Education as opposed to the Faculty of Rural Development.  We really wanted to make sure that we had girls on the team because for our Sprinkles project the focus groups will be with women so they might be more comfortable if a female is asking the questions. We also wanted to branch out to other faculties and since we’ll be working on a new methodology called “participatory action research” we thought it would be useful to have some students who know more about psychology and such. The team seems to be really enthusiastic and we’re all getting along really well. Like us, the INATEK students aren’t being paid for this. The commitment is pretty big so it’s quite commendable of them! In Rwanda I think there is more of a variety of students. Some start right after high school but from what I’ve gathered it seems like the majority of students start first year when they are 22 or 23. And there are also a lot of adult students. The schools offer day, evening and weekend programs so that people can study around their work schedules. One member of our team is actually the head master of a primary school, and is in year 4 at INATEK (The bachelor’s program takes 5 years).

 Previously, schooling was paid for by the government up to year 6, but they have recently changed this to year 9. Another big change--school used to be taught in French, but last year they changed the curriculum to English. That’s HUGE! I can’t imagine how hard that must be for the teachers and students, but it seems to have been a successful switch. They brought in some English teachers from other East African countries to facilitate the change. As a result it isn’t uncommon to find a person who speaks 4 languages: Kinyarwanda, French, English and Swahili. One guy that we have befriended speaks those 4 languages and has asked me to help him work on his Spanish! Very impressive. Another result from the English curriculum, whenever we walk past a group of school children that normally stop what they’re doing to stare at us, and eventually one of them will call out “good morning!” (even if it’s the afternoon or evening) and then proceed to ask “how are you?” with perfect pronunciation.  Yesterday we attended Language Day at INATEK. It was a huge competition for secondary students to use their English. The categories were song, poetry, public speaking and skits. It was quite entertaining! From what we heard in the poetry and public speaking sections, the students are quite passionate about learning/practicing their English because they see it as the key to the development of the country.

This week we have a meeting with the district office to go over the survey (we’ve been making many changes to it to adjust for the rainy season), and we hope to finalize it tomorrow. We have 2 more training sessions with the team and hope to do a pilot run at the health centre to get some practice in before the real deal.  Then we will have to go to Kigali to print off over 200 copies of the final survey, we have to arrange for a taxi-van to take us into all of the villages (4 villages a day for 6-8 days..TBD), we have to organize a picnic lunch to bring into the field for 11 of us (most likely samosas, chapatti, cake and fruit), and we have to pick up 200 bottles of oil to give to each household that we interview. We are also hoping to meet up with UNICEF so we can start making some decisions about the Sprinkles project.

Last week was all meetings and planning, and one trip to Kigali...Actually it was a trip to a new area for us (Nyamata), to visit a contact we have from World Vision. Nyamata is only about 60 km West of Kibungo, whereas Kigali is 90 km NW of Kibungo. However, the only way to get anywhere is through Kigali. So we left at 10am, go to Kibungo just after 12. Went to the national bank to transfer money to register for a conference in November, had a rushed lunch and then caught another hour-long bus ride to Nyamata. We had a meeting for about 1.5 hours which was very helpful for us, and then we had to face the long ride home. We had heard that there was a bus from Nyamata to Kibungo at 5pm, but apparently that information was wrong. We had the option of returning through Kigali or taking a new route through Sake. Everyone was VERY helpful and we drew quite a crowd in Nyamata while waiting for the bus. We heard that there would be a bus from Sake to Kibungo, but when we got on the bus I started talking to a guy who informed us that there wouldn’t be a bus until the following morning. This guy, Linny, was very helpful and actually called a friend of his in Sake and had him come with 3 taxi-motos to drive us back to Kibungo. The bus ride into Sake was great! It was very different from the ride into Kigali. With each turn we got onto a smaller and smaller road until we were on a one lane dirt road going through a banana field. It was really neat to be going through such small villages. As soon as we arrived in Sake the bikes were waiting for us. I think they were quite excited to be driving 3 muzungus to Kibungo on a Thursday evening (and we were quite excited too). I think i mentioned in a previous post that I’ve taken quite a liking to taxi-moto rides. I’ll get some pictures from Kathy to post on the blog. This moto ride was like none other. It was evening so the sun had just gone down, and were quite far from any cities so it was dark and just cooling off a bit. I put on my scarf and strapped my bag on tight ,and before getting on took out my ipod to further enjoy this experience. Once we had started moving my the driver took off his helmet and motioned for me to give him an earbud. I really enjoy sharing music so I of course conceded to his request and we continued along for 40 minutes happy as clams. I was singing into the wind and he was bobbing his head along to the tunes. His favourites were Vampire Weekend and Hawksley Workman...good taste. It was an exhilarating experience right up there with late night swims in Peachland or at ‘Hippie Point’, ATV-ing through a jungle to arrive at a cenote, or standing at the end of a pier during a wind storm... J

Sprinkles

Sunday, Oct. 3

We are in Kigali again today because Sung Kyu had a booth at an agriculture exhibition to present his compost tumbler machine. It’s a project idea that he came up with when he discovered that the use of organic fertilizer in Rwanda is very low. This week he built a big (6 ft x 3ft diameter) metal cylinder that can hold up to 1 tonne of organic material. It has two doors on it so you put food scraps or foliage into one door and give it a few spins everyday and in about 2 weeks you should have soil coming out of the second door. INATEK gave him a budget for the machine, and in the next few months some students will conduct research to see how successful it is.

I have some time before getting the bus back to Kibungo so I thought I would give more details about the Sprinkles project. Sprinkles is the brand name of a micronutrient powder that a Canadian, Carl Zlotkin, invented about 10 years ago. It’s meant to be a short term intervention to alleviate micronutrient deficiencies in children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years. It comes in a little package that mothers put into their child’s food (such as porridge) once a day. It contains many micronutrients, but one of the main ones of concern in Rwanda is iron. In previous studies, children that received Sprinkles once a day for 2 months remained anaemia-free for the following 7 months. This intervention has been found to be successful in many countries and there is a big interest to bring Sprinkles to Rwanda. So how do we fit in? Well, Judy has been involved with the discussions about this intervention in Rwanda, and the previous team in May asks several questions about the willingness of mothers to use Sprinkles during their survey. One such question was concerning the packaging design. In the past, Sprinkles implementation has failed because the child depicted on the package had big rosy cheeks and the mothers took this for measles and wouldn’t use it (however, the very same packaging was used in another country and was very successful). In May there was a girl working on the project that works on design for social change, and she created several different package designs to see which one the mother’s liked the most. So we already have some data concerning Sprinkles and it will be our job to conduct more formative research (in the form of focus groups with mothers, fathers and other caregivers, as well as key informant interviews with health workers) to gather data on what the current infant and young child feeding practices are, how Sprinkles should be distributed and advertised, and what potential obstacles might be.

The main partners in this project will most likely be UNICEF and World Vision. We aren’t involved in that side of things and I’m not really sure if anything formal has been decided. But as far as we know UNICEF will be using World Vision to run a pilot study because World Vision has offices all over Rwanda. We will be doing research in 4 different areas so we will probably have to spend a few days overnight in some places. World Vision will most likely be able to cover these costs. We have a contact (a former UBC student) who has been using a certain methodology to conduct her focus groups with women in Rwanda. It is called Participatory Action Research and the idea is that the researcher isn’t just extracting information from people because they will be learning something during the focus group as well. I don’t know much about it yet but we will be getting together with her to learn how to conduct these focus groups.

That might have been kind of boring… I will post again soon. We’ve been really busy this week meeting up with the students that we will be working with!

Week 2

It’s been a long week! It’s strange not having a routine—the days feel longer, and more relaxed than at home but looking back on what we’ve done since Monday I feel accomplished. We might not actually have many concrete things to show for it, but the project plans are becoming more clear and things are falling into place. We went into Kigali on both Monday and Thursday for meetings with World Vision to discuss our Sprinkles project. It was pretty exciting to be at the national head quarters! Kigali is a treat for us because of the food options, the coffee, the shopping and the taxi moto rides J On both days our meetings were in the morning, we would go somewhere for lunch and then we would debrief and do some work before heading home. Normally I really enjoy going on long drives and even sitting on long greyhound rides (I find it rejuvenating to just sit and look out the window while listening to music), however the drive on Monday was far from rejuvenating. I think I have mentioned the city buses before. They are the size of a Volkswagen westvalia and they squeeze 19 people into it! So you are squished up against the people beside you and there’s really no way to move around or shift your weight. So I found myself having an internal debate the whole way home trying to decide whether I should start eating even more French fries so that my bum would get more padding…fortunately for my health, we discovered that there are bigger buses that go into Kigali and certain times, so we planned accordingly and left at 530 am on Thursday!

On Tuesday we had a full day of meetings (the Kibungo Health Centre in the morning, the Dean of the Faculty of Rural Development, and then a team meeting with Sunk Kyu to write a report and hammer out some details of the project), Wednesday was a relaxed morning and then meetings in the afternoon and evening (we had our first meeting to recruit some INATEK students to work with us), and Friday consisted of more meetings! Even today, Saturday, we spent much of the day using our brains to work through the survey, plan some student training, meet with Judy on skype (the professor heading this project who is currently working in Cambodia) and meet with an INATEK staff member. I also had to do laundry today (hand washing 5 shirts, underwear, two pairs of pants and a scarf takes some time!), and I finally felt up to doing some yoga. It felt very productive.

I discovered a few things in the past few days…the first was a GIANT spider in my bedroom! I tried to handle the situation on my own and spent several minutes planning and practicing my execution using a tin mug and some postcards, but when it came down to it I couldn’t do it on my own. I texted Kathy to see if she was awake because I needed support. To my surprise she got out of bed and came equipped with a headlamp, a glass and some paper and as soon as I pointed to the spider she went at it without hesitation. In my opinion that might not have been the best way of going about it as it took her about 5 attempts to actually capture it. Picture Kathy hitting the glass against the wall over and over while the giant spider is dancing around, and I’m screaming and yelling “I thought we were going to talk about this first!” over and over…not my finest moment. Once captured we took a picture, and then left my room to find many people staring at us…not unusual in Rwanda, but this was especially awkward given the circumstances, as well as because it was a big group of academics that had been at a conference at the university and were spending the evening in the courtyard outside my door. I have to admit that I had only used my mosquito net once since arriving at St-Joseph’s, but seeing that spider has been a better incentive than the risk of getting malaria, and I plan to use it for the rest of the trip. The second discovery was the tell tale signs of bed bugs, the 3 bites in a row commonly referred to as “breakfast, lunch and dinner”. Some of you may know that I became quite the bed bug expert when my roommates and I got them while living on campus 2 years ago. At UBC they had an employee that specifically dealt with bed bugs…he even had a big office so you can imagine that this must be quite a big issue on campus. The UBC bed bugs were taken very seriously and our rooms had to be completely evacuate of all our belongings and fumigated 3 times. It was quite a hassle, but looking back on it now I wish I could have the same treatment here. I have no idea how they would handle this situation here…so I think I’ll just have to deal with it. The THIRD discovery was a joyful one! We were walking back from our meeting today and saw 2 empty yogurt containers outside. We immediately went into the St-Joseph store to inquire and found out that they have yogurt available! I’m sure this will become a regular treat for us. My morning porridge just keeps getting better! I bought a kettle, mugs, a spoon and Rwandan honey…I also brought almonds and cinnamon from Canada, so my breakfast feels just like home. For dinner today I was mixing fries with my pasta (that definitely did not feel like home)…and the sad thing is how exciting it was to have the plain pasta noodles! We have resorted to mixing all of our various starches (fries, rice, sweet potato, banana) together to increase the flavour. Today there was a pureed soup that Gurjeet poured all over her starch..she was able to pretend (Hook style) that she was eating “alfredo pasta, cheesy fries and curry rice”. It’s good to be creative!

I have more to write but not enough time! I will post this now and try to add more about the project later. And I’ll put up some pictures…