Little Darlings of Dar

Dar

Well it's official....I LOVE Tanzania.  And I love conducting this research.  All and all this has been a superb experience thus far and is a timely reminder for me of why I got into this field in the first place.  ; )  But then again, how often is is that I don't like somewhere in East Africa (ha!).


This is not to say this trip has been easy on me physically and mentally.  The first few days after I arriving I caught an upper respiratory infection that left me voiceless and feeling pretty crappy up until now.  In addition, the upper 90's scalding hot temperatures of Dar caused an unpleasant heat rash that just made me look more awkward (white with red splotches) during our interviews.  Combine those two physical maladies with working 12-14 hour days, because apparently the work never stops in Seattle, and you have got someone who will really be ready for vacation on March the 3rd!  Eyes on the prize...


Week 1 of the trip was spend in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania.
A couple of fun facts and first impressions of Dar:

• Dar es Salaam, Arabic for "harbour of peace", is a lively, vibrant East African city located right on the Indian Ocean with an urban population of over 2 million, ~60% living in slums...and thus our work begins.
• As previously mentioned it is hot as hell in Dar.  Part of our assessment is measuring the ambient temperatures outside which were all over 95 degrees each day I measured.  To further complicate matters it is dry and dusty before the rains start in March.  
• My other point of reference for large East African cities is Nairobi and I would consider Dar much like Nairobi but hotter, more muslin, and less dangerous.  The latter two observations might not be entirely unrelated with less alcohol availability and less carousing.  
• Tanzanians are super friendly and welcoming.  Greetings are a really big thing here.  When someone passes you on the street you greet each other.  I read somewhere that this is part of Tanzanian culture in order to "keep up good relations."  This is really cool to me and a far cry of the introverted attitude of Seattlites with strangers.  Brings me right back to my Texas roots.

My first day in Tanzania I hired Anna Meleiya, a gorgeous 27 year old Tanzanian, as a research consultant for our study.  I knew when I interviewed her than she would be great!  She is currently working on her Masters degree in Occupational Health and her thesis is exploring health effects of Tanzanian miners.  As the name may imply, Tanzania is rich in natural resources, mainly Tanzinites (blue gem) and Gold.  Anna  is from a town called Arusha and has done quite a bit of qualitative research and is a skilled interviewer.  Among other talents, she is a Kiswahili teacher to foreigners.  Lucky for me!  We spend all of our days together and I feel really fortunate to have her working on this project.  She is a joy to be around and very interested in sharpening her skill set on our project.  Bottom line, Anna rocks!


Most of my previous research was focused around quantitative research.  Quantitative research is designed to quantify "who is doing what" in a population.  In contrast, qualitative research, the research we are doing in this study, is designed to answer "why" people are doing whatever are the behaviors of interest.  In our current research project we are looking to understand why people have the behaviors they do with water and sanitation practices.  PATH puts quite a bit of value on qualitative research which I am gaining a new-found appreciation for in my current position.


Our study consists of semi-structured, in -depth interviews of households and stakeholders.  The interviews rely heavily on open-ended questions and observations from the households.  There is a large media component to the data we are collecting including still photography, videography, and audio recordings.  After we spent two days in training, we hit the field in Dar.  The first part of our study took placer in Buguruni Ward, a slum on the outskirts of Dar.  Buguruni is densely populated and sadly reminiscent of the slums I have working in in Nairobi.  It was super hot, dry, dusty and dirty.

Buguruni Market

We conducted 7 household and 3 stakeholder interviews in Buguruni.  During these interviews, Anna conducted the interview in Kiswahili and I managed all the media equipment while answering the occasional clarification question from Anna.  This has been a really fun job for me, even while feeling like crap, because it has allowed me to tap that wanna-be photojournalist spirit inside of me while getting to quietly observe how people live in this community, what kinds of things they have in their houses, and what do for their water and sanitation needs.  I am averaging about 200 still photos a day and video clips of women fetching water all while practicing two skills that do not at all come naturally to me, being patient and being quiet.  ; )


Some general observations from Buguruni slum:

• Most households get their water from taps which can be sourced by properly dug government wells or private companies who do not take care in surveying their potential well sites to make sure they are not in danger of mixing with raw sewage.
• All households store their water in 5-Liter plastic buckets with lids and they stack 15 or so of these containers by the door.
• All household have pit latrines and they are often shared by 10-20 other people. There is no formal sanitation system and private companies empty the pits and dump it in an area of the slum close to houses and it regularly mixes with the water lines.
• People prefer more traditional looking designs of water filters than the ones PATH developed for SE Asia (no big surprises there!).

Household Interview

Water tap and storage containers

Product feedback on water filters

Typical pit latrine

After completing the interviews in Dar, Anna and I headed for Gieta.  Gieta is in Mwanza province on Lake Victoria and it much cooler, not as dusty, and a small red dirt mining town.  To get here we flew on a 1.5 hour flight, took a 2.5 hour drive, and a 30 ferry ride across Lake Victoria.  We will be here for the next 5 nights.

Working in Buguruni was certainly interesting albeit a bit heartbreaking as always.  The kids were adorable and willing subjects for my amateur photography.  Am happy to report I am feeling much better physically heading into week too and am excited about the differences we will see in this community.






Much love,


Liz

Tanzania

Mambo friend and family!!


Welcome to my new blog site!  I finally started one.  ; )  I am sure this will significantly reduce the burden of large attached photos cluttering your inbox as you read about my travels!  Blogging is a new project for me and I am just now trying my hand at it. Thanks for your patience as I have finally come out of the dark ages of emailing travel updates and join the rest of the blogging world.


Right, so here we go....I am in Tanzania and it is my first visit to this country.  Tanzania, located in East Africa is the southern neighbor of beloved Kenya.  The are many things to love about Tanzania, it is warm and sunny, right on the Indian Ocean and is home to more wildlife areas than any other place on the Earth.  Some of the parks include the famed Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Tanangire, and the Selous Game reserve.  And then there is the Zanzibar archipelago!  


I arrived this past Thursday after a 29-hour journey from Seattle which included 4 flights, 5 airports, and 9 hours of layover time (not the most direct route).  It was grueling to say the least....but I am finally here!  My last flight over, on Thursday morning, was from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam and we literally flew right over Mount Kilimanjaro....freaking amazing.  Kilimanjaro is the highest peak on the African Continent sitting almost 20,000 feet above sea level.  The top is a flat plateau and snow-covered.  Fortunately, I was sitting in the 'F' position set on the airplane for optimum mountain viewing but unfortunately, my camera was safely stowed away in the overhead bin and getting it would of required me climbing over 2 large Tanzanian men.  I will not make this rookie mistake on the way back.  


I am here to conduct the Tanzania arm of a 3-country qualitative assessment to determine preferences of African households for water and sanitation interventions.  The other two arms are in Mali and Ethiopia.  The three assessments are being led by three different PATH researchers; Mali (Siri), Ethiopia (Jennifer), and Tanzania (me!).  The Mali assessment wrapped up last week, Tanzania is launching on Monday, and Ethiopia, not far behind, will launch on Wednesday.  


As some of you know, PATH got into water work 5-years ago when we were awarded a 25-million dollar grant form the GATES Foundation.  For the last 5 years we have been doing extensive research in India and Southeast Asia but are now interested in expanding our WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) portfolio into Africa.  One of the nice things about working at PATH is the organization values background, formative research before expanding into new areas.  So, this is what we are hoping to accomplish through this assessment.  We are aiming to learn more about what households are currently doing in these three countries for water storage, treatment, and sanitation management in order to get an idea of a direction for a strategy to hopefully intervene in a positive way.


In all three countries we are conducting this qualitative assessment by visiting households and stakeholders in rural and urban areas and conducting 2-3 hour in-depth interviews with a small sample in order to determine 'anything and everything' related to what households are currently doing with water and sanitation.  This includes conducting a semi-structured interview with the lady of the household, following them to their water source to collect water (while videoing), coming back to the house and observing water storage and treatment practices, observing hand washing facilities, and the household latrine (yay!).  In addition we are hoping to get feedback on our PATH water filters to determine their appropriateness for the African context.  They were developed for and intended for the SE Asian market and our hunch is they will need to look a little more 'Africa- appropriate' (imagine clay pot) to work well here.  We shall see.

Since arriving I have been arranging logistics, hiring a local research consultant, ensuring we have Tanzanian ethical approval for our study, and anything else that needs to be done to start piloting our interview guides tomorrow.  


The Tanzanian arm of the study will be conducted in 2-places within the country, Dar es Salaam (urban) and Mwanza (rural).   This first week will be spent conducting interviews in Dar and then
myself and Anna (research consultant) will travel Mwanza on the shore of Lake Victoria.

I am really excited about this research.  It is exploratory, ethnographic research, which is a type of research that I do not have much experience in but was very interested in learning more about. 


In other news, Stevan is coming out at the end of the research period and on March 3rd we start an 8-night vacation here in Tanzania.  We are currently planning a mini-safari as well as a substantial beach vaca in Zanzibar!!


I plan on posting more frequently, with shorter posts so check back often if you like.  Hope everyone is well.  


Love,


Liz