I spent most of the weekend stressed out about my project... I know, I'm in a developing country, and working with NGOs is never easy, but when an individual who's supposed to be helping instead mindlessly undermines my work (and does so on a regular basis), I start to get pretty pissed off! Here's what happened...
Kamlaka is the man from Impact who was put in charge of arranging my training sessions with the women's groups... he doesn't really do anything himself, but rather sends out one of his guys, Suresh, into the field to talk with the Anganwadi workers a day or two before the session is supposed to happen. On several occasions, Kamlaka has lied or otherwise misrepresented circumstances, either magically cancelling my sessions or pretending there was some sort of misunderstanding and not scheduling them to begin with. I've given up on communicating anything verbally - i submit EVERYTHING in memo format (Memo: please call me tomorrow.... Memo: I will not be here on Friday). Yep, it's that ridiculous, but I've accepted that it's just the way things work around here and learned to work with it.
Now, on Friday, I was all set to go; my translator and I were at the guesthouse (we had just finished shopping for the upcoming week), waiting for the car to come as usual. When it was half an hour late, I called the office to see what was going on... and was told that my meeting had been cancelled! Again! This was a shock because even that morning, when I had seen Kamlaka at the office, he didn't mention anything. Long story short - Neelam was in Palghar with some independent contractors who were conducting an information session, and Kamlaka wasn't letting Suresh come with us (did Suresh even need to attend the meeting? That's right - nope). Neelam defended him (poll: is she purposely a jerk, or just comes off that way?). Well, I had definetely had it... it was my final training session, and this was one of many times something similar had happened... not only was it disrespectful of my time, but it made the NGO look terrible to the women. How can we say that we're going to show up and then not even let them know that the session had been cancelled? Most of the women spend their days working in the fields and come back to the village specifically for the meeting... I felt terrible that, once again, we were letting them down. So I did the only thing I could: I called Zelma, Impact's CEO. She had given me her cell phone number at the beginning and told me to call her if there were any problems... well, this certainly qualified! A few hours later, I was getting apologies, and things have been going well since... gee, I wonder what happened...! It's unfortunate that I had to play the power card, but what the hell, sometimes a little muscle goes a long way.
This week is a hectic one... I'm dedicating it to doing follow-up sessions, which is a bit of a logistical nightmare, but so far things have been going relatively smoothly. We're re-visiting villages where I have previously taught, meeting with the women for brief 10 minute sessions to assess how well they retained the information. We're offering them a small gift for coming to the sessions - clothing for their children - so the turnout has been great. I designed a simple 20 point questionnaire that's being administered my Suresh and Hema (my translator); I spend my time supervising, collecting the forms, seeing patients, and doing manicures for the cute little schoolgirls who peer inquisitively through the windows. The results - thus far - have been incredible; On average, women are scoring 17-19 points, regardless of age or literacy. If this pattern continues, I'll have proved that my project really works: you can use illustrations to effectively teach health concepts to illiterate women. Once I have data that definitively proves it, I can publish and present it, knowing that this project can be replicated in similar communities throughout the world. And that's worth all the bad food and mosquitoes India can throw at me ;).
A photo with women from my last first aid training session.
Demonstraing c-spine precautions at the follow-up session.
Women rummage through the gifts... I bought shorts, t-shirts, dresses, toothbrushes, hairbands... $75 bought enough stuff for approxmiately 300 women. Pretty crazy how far money can go here.
Filling out the follow-up questionnaire; women work in pairs and can use the first aid books to help them recall information.
My team: From the left: Udpal (driver), Hema (translator), me, Suresh, and Kamlaka.
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