Geschichten ueber Malawi

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/09/14/090914fi_fiction_theroux?printable=true
---------------------------------------------
Clara Höpler
-----
Malawi cell phone: +265993213078

Hier ist alles viel besser.ich fange am mich zu entspannen,arbeite
nicht mehr so viel,war gestern sogar aus! rundherum wird alles
grün,prachtvoll!
Ab morgen bin ich auch
Baumeister,haha.werden die strasse reparieren,damit wir auch während
der regenwehu fahren können- bin schon gespannt. Arbeiter, truck und
quelle für die steine sind gecheckt und hoffentl geht's morgen los. Im
besten fall schaffen wir's in einem tag.
Meldet euch mal, will wissen,wie es euch geht und was ihr treibt!
Alles liebe,clara

--
Von meinen Mobilgerät aus gesendet

Clara Höpler
-----
Malawi cell phone: +265993213078

Rainy times............

Just last night we were discussing a strategy to get the road leading to the villages a repaired. We would get the villagers to provide stones and labor and we would get a lorry to carry the stones. Their contribution to the project would increase participation and a sense of ownership among the villagers and would help us to continue throughout the rainy season without spending too much money. That we would already be stuck at our house this morning no one was expecting - and this is only the start of rainy season!!!!

Operation Mini-Bus

We are going towards the end of the 3rd week of the operation of the
Mini-Bus and the 2n week of Activities Surveys. And - although I am
not even in the field right now and should probably wait until I am
back to see whether this is actually true - but it seems like things
are finally running smoothly.

After 2 days of strike and negotiations, the enumerators agreed to the
initial terms that I had offered (we just don't have money to pay them
more) but I found a system that would allow them to make a decent wage
while staying within our budget. The days of strike actually gave me some time to sit down and think things through and I came up with a few measures to increase
output (=questionnaires per enumerator per day) so that everyone wins
(we pay fewer enumerators a day for daily allowances, and enumerators
increase their daily wage by increasing the number of surveys
administered.)

I could finally start with more interesting work - the ridership
analysis of the 1st week of of bus operation. Working on the
qualitative part of our study which consists of journal entries of our bus stop monitor capturing conversations (rumors,
discussions, etc.) is hilarious - the rumors about our bus (we are
satanists and will cause an accident to get their blood) and the
discussions among villagers (they heard on the radio that a cure
against HIV was found - if this is true, this i great - they can have
multiple women!!!) are a lot of fun to read.

The past few days I spent in LLW working on the template for the data
entry. This was less satisfying since I had to fight with a stupid
program (CSR PRO) and corrupt files that kept deactivating entry
forms....

Now I am going back to the field and hope that that the supervisors
did a good job while I was away. Again, I will have no money to pay
may people (a recurrent theme) but I hope this issue will be solved
soon!

--
Clara Höpler
-----
Malawi cell phone: +265993213078