Our field surveying and data entry are finally completed! Yesterday was my last day in the field and I think it was my favorite. It was a gorgeous day, hot sun but cool breeze and everyone we encountered was very friendly. I also had a great translator which added to the experience. At the end of each interview the translator gave the participants an opportunity to ask us questions and express their concerns. One woman asked us what issues we had uncovered thus far with our surveying and we were able to tell her that water availability seemed to be one of the biggest problems.
We also had the rare opportunity to talk with a man of the household – the men are usually out tending to livestock during the day so for the most part we have been interviewing the wives. In this particular case however, the man of the boma returned during one of our surveys. Once we had finished our survey he had plenty of questions to ask, mostly about health issues; for example if one of his family members contracted TB how would they keep from spreading it, if his children were malnourished what should he do if he can’t afford enough food and even if the Maasai traditional treatment for chicken pox and measles (hot goat oil) was really a good cure. We answered his questions the best that we could and referred him to the local clinic for more guidance.
A lot of the people that we interviewed expressed interest in our results and were invited to our final presentation on August 9. The presentation will go over all of our findings and recommendations based off our results. Along with community members, local health leaders and government officials will also be in attendance. SFS is arranging for transportation for any community members that wish to attend so that everyone has a chance to be here.
Now that all of our data is collected and entered we will spend the next week doing single and bi-variable analysis and creating charts and graphs with Epi Info. We will use the following week to write up our final report and prepare our presentation for August 9th.
Tomorrow is our last free day of the program and we are planning on hiking to Tanzania! We will hike from Loitokitok which is about an hour drive from SFS and into a river gorge along the border. The hike should take a few hours and we will be accompanied by armed wildlife guides in case we have any close encounters with wildlife. After the hike we will go back into town for lunch and shopping at the market