Putting the field back in the field experience

We started with our field work in Nam Dong, about two hours from Hue city. Needless to say, it has been an exciting and adventurous few days. We left on Monday early in the morning - it takes anywhere between 1 - 2 hours to get there. Some highlights from our trip included: 

1. The motorbike rides to reach different communities - the landscape was mountainous, green and lovely.

2. By standing at the local post office and looking mournful and not understanding the language and pretending to not understand that they did not give prints to people, Megan and I managed to get prints of our updated surveys. The staff person then showed us out and shut the door. Politely but firmly. But it worked!

3. A LOT was lost in translation and a lot of our information is still in Vietnamese. Our poor translators, they were so helpful and their work is still not done.

4. Meagan from the bathroom: "There is a feather here" (in addition to lizard poop and other live and dead creatures). Me: "Be glad it is not attached to something." (okay so this may not be a highlight but it makes me laugh)

5. Our activity charts fell a lot (we need better quality tape next time and a better plan!)

6. Nam Dong seems to get a lot of sudden and intense downpours. Also lightning. It was really cool in the evenings and really nice!

7. Everybody knows I am Indian (by my eyes apparently :)) and at one community there was definitely some good-natured teasing and flirting.

If you have the patience and inclination for more (and pictures!), here's a quick summary of each of our days.



Day 1

Day 1

We left at 6 am, stopped along the way for some pho (Vietnamese noodle soup, not for me though, 6 am is wayyy too early). We were squeezed pretty tightly in the car but  most of us managed to nap along the way. We reached Nam Dong around 8 am, had ca phe sua and ca phe Saigon, while waiting to meet with the officials. We then headed to their office (across the road, it is a small town) and spent the next two hours asking questions and getting answers. Keep in mind all of this was being translated from English to Vietnamese to English and  back and forth. We met only two sets of officials instead of the planned three and it was definitely a helpful meeting. It would have been useful to meet the third set as well.

Day 1

We checked in the guesthouse, then had an eight-course lunch at what seemed to be a restaurant run by a family in one of the rooms in their house, and left for the community visit for the day. This was in one community room and we used opposite sides of the room to interact with the groups (we had split into two sub-groups to be able to meet more people). The participants were predominantly men and the first session was interesting because we also figured out that we needed to change the text for a few questions, the way we asked them and the way some of our activities were structured. We returned to the guesthouse, made edits to the survey and went looking for a printing place. We kept getting sent in opposite directions because we don't speak Vietnamese and people didn't speak English. Luckily all of this was in a radius of less than half a kilometer. After sad-facing our way at the post office to get prints, we got some stationery and got stuck for a while since it rained.

The cafe next to our guesthouse.

Dinner that evening really was something! The combination of the place, the manly talk, the booze, the innuendos, it irked me, it was icky. I have been trying to figure out why because it is not that these things, individually bother me. On another day I will dwell more deeply on this.

For a night light (since we had spotted geckos, possibly a cockroach and spider around the room), we used the muted flicker of a television channel veiled by a T-shirt. It worked (except when it switched itself off and we still don't understand why!).

Day 2

One of the sessions on day 2

This was our busiest day, with 3 sets of interviews for both groups each. We left at 7 am, returned for lunch and left again. Children, chicken and puppies were part of interviews at different times. We were accompanied all of the days by some district officials, one of whom was tremendously helpful. One of the interviews involved translations from Katu language to Vietnamese to English and back and you can imagine how much work that was (and how much was probably lost in translation).

Dinner involved several dishes (mostly rice and soy sauce for me and I have to say that this may be a food combination I can never eat after Vietnam) including some expensive forest frogs, which our group hardly ate and I think that upset the owner a little. I also enjoyed the egg dish, which tasted very much like an omelette to me. I honestly haven't taken to the food and had carried fruits and cookies for snacking during breaks and I am glad I did that.

It rained again and got remarkably cooler. The only way to get internet was to sit in the cafe next to the guesthouse, and it was a lovely cafe (with children and chicken families running around in the day and great music at night). Since the TV died, we gave up on the night light. The anti-malarials messed with different people in different ways (they make Meagan nauseous and Megan as well I think, while they don't let me sleep comfortably).

Day 3

Day 3 - Megan and Tu Anh (from CORENARM)

We could only meet with one community today since the other community 'didn't show up'. Like I said, a lot is in translation and I am not sure what happened. That was a bummer. It seemed they were out harvesting a valuable fruit mushroom (hui) that can be sold for 1 million Vietnamese dong. It would have been nice to meet with all the groups but oh well.




Our occasional snafus included our second official leaving us on day 2, change of transportation plans to get to Hue (although the ride back was much faster), and suchlike. The trip was also not originally quite budgeted for and everything in Nam Dong (meals, stationery, renting bikes) costs a million Dong. It has to do with Nam Dong being a smaller town but it was fairly expensive. Oh well. But relatively speaking, these are small things and we got back safe and sound! I have to say, Hue sweet Hue.

I will post separately about the interviews we conducted with the community groups, what we learned and more another time. For now, here are some more more pictures!

Start of day 2

Day 2 with the very helpful Mr Van

Chickens

Rubber trees (the blue cups are for the sap)