Reflections on Week 4

I can't believe I'm at the one month mark already!! Time is flying by lately (like it always seems to do).

So, I updated you all when I got back from the field last weekend, and guess what?! I'm leaving for the field again tomorrow! :) The last week has been a whirlwind of class, interim presentations, and preparations for the next round of data collection.

My team and I have had meeting after meeting with our academic and NGO mentors to try and figure out how we can incorporate what we've already learned with something measurable (after last weeks test results didn't leave us any direction to go forward with). We finally decided to try and link waterborne disease to high health expenditures. We heard during many of our focus group discussions that health issues like diarrhea and vomitting are common during the monsoon and summer seasons. I will have much more concrete information after this next round of questionaries, so I will be sure to share the numbers with you all.

The question is what can we do about it? We are planning to conduct very basic demand assessments of a few water treatment options that we might be able to implement in the community. The trick here is to make the options sustainable, so that the community can take on whatever project we suggest with very little assistance from Seva Mandir. We are hoping to work with the women's groups and gauge interest in a business initiative where they could possibly construct the filtration devices and sell them for income. We know they have the capacity to make the clay tiles that they put on their roofs and they also make big clay water containers, so we are thinking some clay filters could be a good recommendation that could be locally sourced. I highly recommend you all check out Potters for Peace if you are interested in learning more about what I am referring to by as a clay filter (Google: Potters for Peace Clay Filter Project).

Anyways, we've gotten really great feedback from all of our mentors and we did very well on our presentation. I am feeling good going into these final weeks that we can come out of this with a solid project report and recommendation for our NGO!

Other than that I have had some free time to enjoy the company of new friends and a few chapters from my latest book (I'm reading the Outlander series and loving it!). We have spent quite a few of the past nights watching the World Cup games. Unfortunately we get a bit screwed over with some of the times being 10 hours ahead of Brazil, but we can usually catch the 9:30pm games. Speaking of that ... GOOOO CHILE!!!! They play Brazil tonight :)

Sorry I don't have much more to say ... my week has been relatively boring compared to past weeks.

I hope you all are well! Will update soon with reflections from my final field visit.

Field Visit 2: Pareda Rawla & Pareda Nichla

Ah, back from the field and it feels so good to be beside this window with my cooler blowing on me once again ;)

But seriously, the field visit this time around was MUCH better!! The weather was much more bearable and the cook made a concerted effort to make the food less spicy for me. To be honest, it was still spicier than I was used to, but I made an effort to eat as much as I could so I wouldn't lose too much energy. I think we were all much more prepared about what to expect this time around. For instance, I brought more snacks and I really stayed on top my water situation so I didn't get dehydrated or exhausted. I also got heat rash last time so I came stocked with goldbond powder and calamine lotion in case that happened again, which luckily it didn't! We covered a lot of ground and met with some really incredible groups of women. We also got our water kit on the last day (yesterday) and went crazy collecting samples in the morning and then analyzed them all evening - will share more about this later.

It was quite a nice experience. I don't think I can explain how beautiful the landscape is in the area I'm working in. It is truly a joy to bask in the picturesque views everyday. Its like discovering a small piece of paradise (in my humble opinion). I will be sure to share lots of pictures at the end of this post in hopes of conveying how lovely it is!! After speaking with my teammates, I am even more excited to go back during the monsoon season to see how beautiful and lush it will look when everything is in bloom after the rains.

We got in late Monday afternoon and decided to wait until Tuesday to head into the field. Like I mentioned in my last post, we are focusing on water quality and in particular on fluoride. We met with one of the village elders on Monday to rack his brain on the issue and to find out what he knew (if anything) and how we might best proceed with our questioning. Then, we spent a few hours hammering out some questions and some semblance of an interview guide that we followed for the rest of our vist, albeit somewhat informally. Most of the questions were centered about water quality, awareness and prevalence of waterborne disease, treatment and storage techniques (if any), general health issues, general questions about food and milk consumption (many people laughed at this, but the idea behind asking about food was to find out if the foods they were eating were also high in fluoride and also if they were ingesting enough calcium to offset some potential fluorosis), and then we delved into these women's self help groups (SHGs) to find out more about how they worked, how they were formed, what type of activities they undertake, etc ... These were informal interviews and focus groups, so our conversations often took other directions. For instance, we were told that alcoholism and domestic violence were issues throughout the community. Additionally, we probed people's interest in some kind of water storage system, like a rainwater storage tank to help battle water shortages.

We spent Tuesday through Thursday in the field. We held a total of 11 focus group discussions and two informal interviews (one with the Dr at the health center and the other with the Block Coordinator from Seva Mandir's Kherwara office). It is just now donning on me how much we did in three short days!! We visited very poor houses with malnourished children and poor water quality to more affluent households with latrines and borewells and healthy looking families and everything in between. Even those who are poor were often very generous. They went out of their way to find us chairs or beds to sit on (they sat on the ground), they offered us water (and sometimes chai), or they gave gifts of herbal plants or fruits. Seriously, some of the loveliest people I've met. There was one group where a lady was so entranced by my hair. She kept touching my ponytail and patting me on the back and was asking all these questions about me. It was so sweet! The kids are so cute too. They can't help but stare at me, but when I catch them at it they turn their heads and give me shy little smiles. The moms with babies were always encouraging them to go to me, with lots of smiles and hand motions. It usually didn't work but it was sweet just the same.

Anyway, long story short, we spent all of yesterday morning (Friday) collecting our precious water samples - 20 in all - and then spent the afternoon analyzing them with the help of a field water testing kit. Unfortunately, it seems that the fluoride reagent is a dud. I will be testing this again at the hostel again tonight to be sure, but it seems unlikely that all the fluoride concentrations were the same between the different sources, and thats exactly what it was telling us. This is dissapointing to say the least. We may need to look into the professional route (e.g. sending the samples to a laboratory for chemical analysis) so we can find out for sure. The reason I think it is a dud is because the clean, filtered water that we used as a control also came out with the same fluoride concentation. This is highly unlikley seeing as we know it was purified through reverse osmosis, which is generally known to remove fluoride.

Back to the drawing board for now. My group and I will have to discuss more options later.

In between all of the running around, we found time for group fun. The girls and I (Anita and Pallavi are my female group members) had fun talking, watching movies, listening to music, and I often read from my Nook. Pallavi also did a beautiful henna design on my hand - she is quite talented (see below for picture)! Manuj, our fourth group member often joined us, as well as Naresh, our local field guide.

Lets get to the pictures!!