Fieldwork

“Good morning visitors”, a loud orchestra of voices and chairs moving: 40 pupils stand up to welcome the newcomers in their classroom. I am among one of the visitors to be greeted. To me it remains a special experience to see all those pupils standing up to greet you with that curious look in their eyes.

The project has come to the quantitative research phase. That means the results of the qualitative open interviews have for a large part been analysed and used to develop a quantitative multiple-choice questionnaire. This questionnaire has been revised by different advisors and translated into Swahili (and back to English to ensure no loss of meaning).
The questionnaires are divided among boys and girls between 15-25 years of age, in rural and urban areas, in- and out- of school. To do this work, Celine and I trained 12 interviewers. Together with them we planned 10 field days whereby on each day two secondary schools are visited and other interviewers visited the selected neighbourhoods to find young people willing to fill in the questions.

On thursday 21th, we visit Moshi-urban. I am with John Kessy to visit Kibo secondary school in Lunguo B. We did not yet announce to this school we were coming for research, but the head master of the school is willing to speak to us.
We explain the aim of our research and show our (5!!!) letters of permission from the district leaders (which is kind a different story of how to get them!). The head master has no objection, we can hand out questionnaires in the Form 3 class, after one hour.
John and I discuss if we can manage to interview some other people during this time. We decide to ask for teachers available that are still under 25. Two teachers are under 25 and are willing to participate. We sit together with them in the staff room. I notice John has become experienced in giving an excellent introduction to the questionnaire. He is polite, interested and motivating.
While we wait for the teachers to fill in the questionnaire I feel a welcome atmosphere and I have an interesting discussion with one other teacher about life and behaviours in Moshi.
At exactly 10.15 am ladies come in with tea and fresh doughnuts for all staff to eat and drink during tea break (this is very common everywhere in Moshi, at tea time all staffs of companies are served tea (with lots of milk and sugar) and a snack. We are mostly welcome to join. When the teachers finish filling in the questionnaire it is about time to enter the classroom….

“Good morning visitors”….

We introduce ourselves as the PRIOR research team, interested to know their opinions on different health related topics to be able to improve education to youth in Moshi. We try to make sure all students have some private space to fill in the questionnaire (students are used to sit very close together although there are tables free to sit elsewhere). They all get a pen and the forms to fill in. The questions are many, so it needs some convincing power to make sure they take their time to read and answer each question carefully. But when checking the first questionnaires returned, I can see they really did.

When seeing all those concentrated faces during filling of the questions I start to feel something like a proud sort of happiness; all of us are at that moment actively trying to fight the problem of HIV, sharing information on experiences.

Later I experience the same feeling while sitting in the middle of nowhere at a bench under a tree. Next to me are three young boys, the local hairdressers of the hair saloon, filling in the questionnaire. When we convinced them to join the research, they were reading their comic books, which they have enthusiastically put aside. Today there are not many costumers for their saloon.
While seeing their commitment to fill in the questionnaire more people become interested and like to participate. John gives each of them a thorough introduction and they find themselves a place to sit in the shade to start answering the questions. At some point we have 11 people filling in the questionnaire, scattered around the place, all serious to give out their personal opinions and experiences. The loud reggae music coming from the shop is not disturbing people in any way from this job of filling in the questions.
I feel for some time I become part of their community at that moment, sitting between those young people and reading their comic books, nobody noticing me as a stranger. Older people also pass by and a lady comes to bring me some roasted cassave. I can feel people really hope their contribution can make a change in the fight against Aids in whatever way.

At the end of the day the other interviewers also come back with about 8-15 questionnaires filled in. We have reached a number of 1250 questionnaires filled in by participants, all personal stories… I value all individuals sharing their time to fill in the questionnaire and the interviewers for their great work!

I will try whatever I can to combine their experiences and come up with a further understanding of how to continue the fight against Aids.