Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Met a girl named Blessing today

The past few days have taken my eye lids and pried them open using the forks of realization and unbelievable circumstance.
I make children urinate.
so, Monday I arrive in Foya and Tuesday, yesterday, we begin the impact assessment. We travel to 3 villages a day. start at 7 am and usually end around 5pm. granted it has only been TWO days of this but I feel like a pro... and like Ive been doing it for weeks.
We go out with the motive of tracking down mothers in the community to talk to them and see how Samaritans Purse has impacted their daily lives and households.... We cant interview everyone so we narrow it down using this complicated-but-not, random selection method (the houses are numbered, then clusters are chosen at random out of the total sum... then the total number of houses in that cluster is divided by 10.. and whatever your answer is, THAT is the number in which you you count up by and use to divide the houses among the interviewers. ex. take 70 houses in a cluster... divide by 10... gets you 7.. therefore each surveyor is given two houses that falls within every 7th house count)
blah. I dont know if that makes sense.
Anyways... I skip around and sit with each surveyor during an interview, supervising their technique and skills during, hoping they are getting the adequate and accurate results we need. I am there to make sure the information we give is translated properly and to see that their answers are recorded correctly. At the end of each interview we weigh the mothers children who are under the age of 5 on this compact and ingenious scale. You have to first place the child and their little chubby legs into this big black diaper looking thing that has one long strap attaching both sides of it which allows you to hang the child from the hook on the scale... that is hanging from the ceiling on a rope.

Well I have asked around and no other surveyor has had an issue like mine. Most of the kids scream and cry when you weigh them. thats fine. They are being hung up like fresh meat, I understand their discomfort. BUT do I understand their instant and desperate need to pee everywhere as soon as their diaper is almost on and my arms are grabbing their two legs?
No. I dont understand it. It has happened three times now. Three spray downs. Two yesterday, one today.
It gave me a new and fresh meaning to the word peeeeee[king]
People laugh alot when it happens. I just try and not weep. I am the only one its happened too. When I sat with Lawrence today and it happened he just laughed and laughed and ran away... proclaiming this was his first peeing encounter.
But its all part of the job, and once the child calms down and I calm down, life is a'right again.

I won tonight, in a rowdy game of Spoons. If you haven't once taken part in this game of vigor and alacrity, either on holidays, camping trips, vacations, night in with your friends, I suggest you try your hand at it (pun pun pun). Emmanuel and I were neck and neck at the end of this game tonight... and I even had my own cheering squad. I was dealt 2 kings right off the bat and I knew the winnings were looking up for me. When I was finally slid the 2 other Kings, one right after the other, I paused a minute to look at my opponent in the eyes as I nonchalantly slipped my hand across the table to grab my treasure.
He wasn't happy, but my victory dance WAS

Tomorrow we gear up to go out again, and I believe Friday we have some more villages to attend.
I plan to wear a plastic bag for a shirt for the remainder of my time out on the field so that I may be peeeeeking proof

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