We are the world
The et al’s have done a really good job at giving Alex and myself ownership of part of the project, but that comes with its responsibility costs as well. Alex and I were in charge of running a pilot version of one of the experimental games the et al’s would like to run in a couple weeks. It came as an exciting and daunting task, since both Alex and I are mere 2nd years, real field work acolytes and complete mzungu strangers to Kampala. But I can think of no better way to introduce us to both field work and this city than to dump us in the middle of both. No such thing as getting your feet wet here, it’s all about belly flopping into it.
The week has been incredibly stressful, incredibly busy, incredibly exhausting – physically, intellectually and emotionally – and incredibly exciting. After a couple days of reconnaissance work in a couple different slum areas and an entirely new epidermal shade, we discovered what random sampling in the field and with human beings really looks like. There’s something quite exciting about choosing a landmark, walking 2 minutes in one randomly selected direction relative to the sun, and picking the first house to your left, that gives meat to the statistics lingo we love to recycle at Stanford. No dead end, gated house, or large matoke field will stop us in our random sampling tracks, and every bone and muscle in our body can certainly feel it by the end of the day. I try not to step back too much to speculate on what I must look like because I’m not sure whether I would be amused or horrified: a strange mzungu walking around the slums, unintentionally crossing people’s backyards, pen and notebook in hand, occasionally stopping to keep track of a pile of bricks here, a large gated house there, the Arafat high school on my left, the construction truck parking lot to my right. Street signs don’t work and every road seems to be “the road to the police station”, or “the road to city centre”.
I did cross people’s backyards a few times; they sit outside, unwrapping and cooking matoke, observing our backs and forths, mumbling in Luganda. Field work so far has felt like an incredibly schizophrenic friend, a balance between smooth sailing and conflagrations of disasters that truly keep you in check. Alex and I had spent quite a bit of time on the logistics of the pilot experiment, and after a successful and exciting first day of subject recruitment on Tuesday, we began to feel like we were settling into our field researcher roles quite well. We had meetings set up for Wednesday, a clear budget, a clear schedule, and a couple of interpreters of Luganda to keep us company. I went to bed on Tuesday night feeling exhausted but ready to get my experimental subjects started on their game. I set my alarm clock for six in the morning to start my day fresh with a run; Simon our driver was picking us up at 7.30 so we could get to the office by 8.30, pick up our interpreters and reach our meeting spots by 9. My alarm clock did go off at 6, but I woke up to the most disorienting sound of a torrid rain crashing on our roof. We must have hit the last big rain storm of the rainy season, and the unpaved roads became mud baths, paralyzing the entire city. It all ended by 7.30, but the damage was done and life all of a sudden got pushed back by an hour and a half. It occurred to me on the drive to the office how easily an entire day’s worth of work and productivity can be shot due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control and I almost became a Jeffrey Sachs convert right then and there. I began to understand the logic of Africa time, and was grateful for it when our subjects also showed up an hour and a half late and we were able to proceed with our plans in spite of the storm.
Another spurt of realization hit after I was told that my interpreter friend, Deo – whom I had been dragging along throughout the slums and who had done an incredible job of connecting with the locals and recruiting with me – couldn’t make it in on Thursday because he was sick with malaria. Alex and I were completely stunned. Deo had not said a word to us all day about it; he had quietly followed us along, walking for four hours under a hot high-noon sun, making conversation with us about California beaches versus New York skyscrapers. I read a passage later that night in Kapuscinski’s book that struck me:
“Time and again you encounter here drowsy, apathetic, benumbed people. They sit or lie for hours on end on the streets, by the roadsides, doing nothing. You speak to them and they do not hear you; you look at them and have the impression that they do not see you. It is unclear if they are ignoring you, if these are just idle lazybones and do-nothings, or if they are being ravaged by a malaria that is slowly and inexorably killing them.”
I just assumed it was cultures clashing, that the locals I met had different maneurisms, intonations, facial expressions. Now, with every new local I talk to who doesn’t quite react to me, I can’t help but wonder where communication breakdown ends and disease, simply, begins.
And I also wonder what the locals crammed next to me in the taxi vans think when “We are the World” comes on the local radio as we drive through a gorge of shacks and mud houses.
The week has been incredibly stressful, incredibly busy, incredibly exhausting – physically, intellectually and emotionally – and incredibly exciting. After a couple days of reconnaissance work in a couple different slum areas and an entirely new epidermal shade, we discovered what random sampling in the field and with human beings really looks like. There’s something quite exciting about choosing a landmark, walking 2 minutes in one randomly selected direction relative to the sun, and picking the first house to your left, that gives meat to the statistics lingo we love to recycle at Stanford. No dead end, gated house, or large matoke field will stop us in our random sampling tracks, and every bone and muscle in our body can certainly feel it by the end of the day. I try not to step back too much to speculate on what I must look like because I’m not sure whether I would be amused or horrified: a strange mzungu walking around the slums, unintentionally crossing people’s backyards, pen and notebook in hand, occasionally stopping to keep track of a pile of bricks here, a large gated house there, the Arafat high school on my left, the construction truck parking lot to my right. Street signs don’t work and every road seems to be “the road to the police station”, or “the road to city centre”.
I did cross people’s backyards a few times; they sit outside, unwrapping and cooking matoke, observing our backs and forths, mumbling in Luganda. Field work so far has felt like an incredibly schizophrenic friend, a balance between smooth sailing and conflagrations of disasters that truly keep you in check. Alex and I had spent quite a bit of time on the logistics of the pilot experiment, and after a successful and exciting first day of subject recruitment on Tuesday, we began to feel like we were settling into our field researcher roles quite well. We had meetings set up for Wednesday, a clear budget, a clear schedule, and a couple of interpreters of Luganda to keep us company. I went to bed on Tuesday night feeling exhausted but ready to get my experimental subjects started on their game. I set my alarm clock for six in the morning to start my day fresh with a run; Simon our driver was picking us up at 7.30 so we could get to the office by 8.30, pick up our interpreters and reach our meeting spots by 9. My alarm clock did go off at 6, but I woke up to the most disorienting sound of a torrid rain crashing on our roof. We must have hit the last big rain storm of the rainy season, and the unpaved roads became mud baths, paralyzing the entire city. It all ended by 7.30, but the damage was done and life all of a sudden got pushed back by an hour and a half. It occurred to me on the drive to the office how easily an entire day’s worth of work and productivity can be shot due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control and I almost became a Jeffrey Sachs convert right then and there. I began to understand the logic of Africa time, and was grateful for it when our subjects also showed up an hour and a half late and we were able to proceed with our plans in spite of the storm.
Another spurt of realization hit after I was told that my interpreter friend, Deo – whom I had been dragging along throughout the slums and who had done an incredible job of connecting with the locals and recruiting with me – couldn’t make it in on Thursday because he was sick with malaria. Alex and I were completely stunned. Deo had not said a word to us all day about it; he had quietly followed us along, walking for four hours under a hot high-noon sun, making conversation with us about California beaches versus New York skyscrapers. I read a passage later that night in Kapuscinski’s book that struck me:
“Time and again you encounter here drowsy, apathetic, benumbed people. They sit or lie for hours on end on the streets, by the roadsides, doing nothing. You speak to them and they do not hear you; you look at them and have the impression that they do not see you. It is unclear if they are ignoring you, if these are just idle lazybones and do-nothings, or if they are being ravaged by a malaria that is slowly and inexorably killing them.”
I just assumed it was cultures clashing, that the locals I met had different maneurisms, intonations, facial expressions. Now, with every new local I talk to who doesn’t quite react to me, I can’t help but wonder where communication breakdown ends and disease, simply, begins.
And I also wonder what the locals crammed next to me in the taxi vans think when “We are the World” comes on the local radio as we drive through a gorge of shacks and mud houses.
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