Worshipping the God of Wealth

On Monday we'd had the last of our working days, finalised our schedules, budget etc. for the rest of the project and discussed what conclusions we could draw, at this stage, from the data. A very satisfactory way to end the workshop. I'm working with a great team here - there's been no politics of any sort, just a group of people who REALLY want this work to end up helping children.  And by the end of the workshop we could see that this research will go some way to empowering children who've been sexually abused - just by the fact that the research highlights how they OVERCAME the terrible situations they found themselves in (most research highlights how they got into these situations or how they suffered in them). So, a good, strong ending to the work.

But on my last day in Nepal it was the festival Divali and I was deeply honoured to be invited back to the family home of Milan (the lead researcher in Nepal). At his home I helped cook puri (puffed up little pancakes) as well as a 'mandala' - a drawing on the ground outside the front door that is made of coloured powder with marigold petals all around it - all the houses have a trail of marigolds and mandalas from their gate to their prayer room - to allow Laxmi, the God of Wealth, to enter the house. I felt so honoured to participate in Milan's family's celebrations, his grandmother, mother, father, sister-in-law and two nephews were all there.  The ceremony bit started at the gate of the house, went through the courtyard, stopping of at the family shrine, then in front of the door (where the mandala was), another shrine by the door and over the door (everyone wants to make sure Laxmi comes into the house!!) and then up the stairs to the prayer room.  Along the way Writu (Milan's wife) and her sister-in-law performed ceremonies with a little tray of bits and pieces (powders and seeds it looked like), and they lit candles and the dad rang a bell.  Milan gave me a running commentary explaining the story of Laxmi and the significance of different aspects of the ceremony - for example, on the tray of bits and pieces there was a coconut which he smashed open and then sprinkled the coconut milk along the path of marigolds. Milan explained that they use a coconut instead of an animal sacrifice as the coconut milk is considered 'pure' - similar to the purity of blood. Milan let off a few fireworks (didn't follow the firework code of course like us safety conscious Brits!).  Then upstairs to the prayer room with lots of singing led by great grandma.  Before we ate I was given a tika blessing (red dot on forehead and marigold petals on head) and drank some special spiced milk (with my right hand). The meal was delicious but by this time I was starting to get twitchy about making my flight on time so had to make some rather hurried goodbyes, screeched in to the airport just in time for check-in (I was the last one!).  It was an amazing ending to my visit to Nepal...not particularly looking forward to facing the reality of all the admin and fundraising tasks I have piling up on my desk...thank goodness I've already worshipped the God of wealth, should have her on my side at least!

Thinking positively despite rain

It's the last day of our analysis workshop and it rained for the first time since I've been in Kathmandu.  We've spent the whole week analysing the data from 47 'life-story' interviews with child domestic workers in Nepal.   We spent the first 2 days developing codes from the data in interviews - which is the first level of analysis, then comes categories, then themes; and we've all got so ensconsed in this process we are now talking in 'codes' to each other.  We say things like 'thinking positively gets researcher through to lunch' or 'going to the toilet enables researcher to escape workload'.  But on a more serious note, the discussions have been really exciting, I'm learning a lot about Nepali culture, once you start delving into what children are saying you realise that it is all influenced by and imbued with cultural values. Where it was most apparent was when analysis team would come up with a Nepali word and it would take a paragraph to explain it in English...one such word meant 'accepting and tolerating by keeping silent, but in a strengthening way'.  I will miss the comradery of the team once I'm back in my little office in Hackney...lots of photos on the Children Unite Facebook Profile if you're interested.  Tomorrow I fly home late so will have time to join in with celebrations for Nepali 'Divali'...which should be fun!

Shaken not stirred in Kathmandu

What do you do on a Saturday night when you’re in Kathmandu for 10 days? Watch a Bond movie of course!  We’ve been ensconced in this mountain resort for seven days, working from 8.30 in the morning to 8.30 at night and as our advisor and teacher (a professor in psycho-social research), left this morning – lovely as she is – we decided to see a bit of Nepali life.  So, four of us went to a mall, ate frozen yoghurt and hot dogs and watched Bond drinking his martini and cry (what is the world coming to!).  I didn’t get all patriotic watching the film as it has only been a week since I was home but I’ve been raving about Scotland (my favourite country!) as I’d flown from Glasgow to Kathmandu (I’d been on holiday in the highlands) and during the film, Bond drives through Glen Coe which I’d driven through on the way to the airport – have to admit to going a bit apoplectic at that point!  

Today was better, phew! I was determined that we'd start off well and we did...at breakfast I got all touchy-feely and made everyone laugh by getting out my little heart cushion thingy and passed it around the group, asking everyone to say what they'd be contributing to the group today (I said I'd be the 'mum' and look after everyone, make sure they're getting enough breaks, tea, vegetables etc.) Then we got cracking on the research codes. We all made a concerted effort to make it all as comfortable as we can so moved out of the cold, dark room we were in and spread ourselves outside in the sunshine.  At one point Faye (the trainer on this research method we are using) and I were using the incredibly low-tech method of catagorising the data on hundreds of little bits of paper that were literally taped down to the table to stop them blowing away in the wind.

Good day for an exclamation mark!

Today was tough, is tough I should say...still working, but I'm at that point where you just think you will NEVER get what needs to be done...done! We are laboriously going through each 75 page interview transcript and coding it....we have 45 interviews to go! So, today I have been mostly re-vising and re-calculating. The research team is in the situation (I seem to be in quite often) where we calculate how long this whole process is going to take, start the activity then, after a bit,  realise we've underestimated the time so revise the activities, re-calculate and start all over again.  We've been doing this all flipping day!  I do hope tomorrow is better!  All of us were starting to speak (shout!) to our transcripts as if they were a person who was purposefully withholding information from us!  Actually I think it was just me who was doing that. And it's never a good sign when you re-read a paragraph you've just written (as I just have with this blog post) and nearly all sentences end with an exclamation mark.  No, not a good sign at all.  I'll cheer myself up by watching Obama's victory again on CNN.

Kathmandu Code Breaking Quake

It was an earthquake that finally made me stop working tonight….I’m in a rather beautiful mountain top resort 5 miles outside Kathmandu undertaking data analysis for a research project Children Unite is running.  The project has been running for ten months, 47 life story interviews and four focus group discussions have been held with child domestic workers here.  It is an exciting moment for me, as I didn’t take part in the actual interviews, this is the first time I’m hearing what the children said but it is also laborious as we’re having to scan through all 47 interviews (some of which are 6 hours long) looking for similarities in the stories and turning these into ‘codes’.  So, when the building started to shake we decided it was a ‘sign’ from the spirits that we should stop for tonight!  More tomorrow…and I will report regularly while I'm here if I have much of a brain left to write….