Koppalin'

I’m back! I have finally managed to stop procrastinating and give you all another update on the second field visit from last week.

Loving life on a rock by the water

The second trip to Koppal was even more fruitful than the last. Though we participated in some interviews with journalists and health officials, we were mostly there to observe and monitor the resource persons (RPs) in how they conduct interviews and focus groups. We also spent some time creating a database for analysis for our sample size of about 2000 people (not including focus groups). I am happy to report that I officially know the basics of SPSS and Excel and learned more in 15 minutes with Raghavendra and Ravi (the quantitative guys working with us) than from an entire semester of Thursday morning tutorials of SPSS in biostatistics. After training the data entry operator woman I began to feel so sorry for the horribly tedious work that that woman will have to do but so unbelievably thankful that its not my job. In India, I am free from the frustrations of menial intern tasks and given tons of responsibility…and a team of RPs. How glorious.

Just outside of a temple
on the mountain

Every village we visited was about an hour or two from the next and drives were unbelievably scenic. One of the villages was on a hill station, so you can imagine how beautiful, remote and peaceful it was…although once the scary researchers stepped out of the car there was a discordant symphony of wailing and whimpering from terrified children (three even

                                                         wet their pants at the sight of me). 

Each focus group presented its own unique distinctions. Some were shy, some outgoing, and some too nervous to even state their husbands last names for record. Some were illiterate and gave fingerprints as consent, while others could sign. Some groups averaged age 13 at marriage, others were more progressive. Some sold hand-made hair combs, while others roasted ground nuts. Some were far from primary health centres (PHCs) and had much to say, other were so close they almost had no complaints. 

Villager in a mountain of groundnuts
(she gave me a heaping bag of them)

All of them, though, were vibrant, opinionated, and obsessed with serials (soap operas). They were also all completely decked out in tons of beautiful and shiny bling (as many ear piercings as could fit, 1-2 nose rings, 12+ bangles on both arms, 2+ necklaces).

Focus Group Discussion

After one of the focus groups, Chethan wanted to give the women some cloth pieces that he brought with him from his fathers tailoring business. I expected to just hand them out but it turned into a whole gift-giving ceremony, of sorts. In a moment of sheer honor and intimidation, as the foreigner and the on-call celebrity, I was elected to hand out each cloth to the 20 women with garlic cloves, rice and spices piled on top (to symbolize the good wishes of never going hungry). I was asked to apply a bindhi between their eyebrows and dot the same powder on their nose rings, bangles and necklaces with Hindu goddess charms on them. It was pretty spectacular to be a part of such a genuine, spontaneous religious ritual. Once I had gifted, bowed and namaste’d all the women, they decided to pay back the favour and conduct the same ceremony for me with the gift of 5 green and gold bangles. Pretty cool eh? It’s all on video. I shall show you guys when I return.

Gift ceremony post focus-group

Sharanappa and his wife

We were also invited for dinners at the Taluk (district) coordinators’ houses in the villages which was quite exciting. The learned technique of eating with my hands (or unlearned technique of not eating with my hands) was truly tested in this final exam of Indian gobble. I strongly believe that I would have passed with flying colours if it not have been for the fire building inside my mouth. Nonetheless, it was great to see inside some of the homes and try some home-cooked village food. The Indian custom, though, is not to eat until your guests are finished so we were served a ton of food but the couples never actually ate or sat down with us.

Dinner at Sharanappa's house with
our driver, Pavan and Chethan

It was also a bit of a struggle to politely refuse the water and the endless heaping mountains of rice shoveled onto my plate (even after the 4 chapatis I was force-fed earlier). I had a bit of a hard time from the unaccustomed food the next morning, but Chethan was reallyyy not in good shape after the second village dinner. I’ve never seen him so quiet. My stomach must be made of steel because I seriously upstaged my Indian colleague.

One of the many bullock-carts
(FYI: Horn-painting festival is next
month...hoping to be able to see it!)

Driving the bullock-cart!
(the car ruined the picture)

 The trip was once in a life time. There are some pretty awesome perks of traveling with locals (driving my own bullock-cart being one of the highlights). There were no annoying tourist gimmicks. I was the first foreigner to ever visit some of these places. But while it was amazing to visit in the company of my Indian friends, my stardom in the villages got very exhausting. I was unrelentingly swarmed by huge crowds of children every step of the way but I fully realize it comes with the territory and I also know that I would react much worse if I saw a celebrity in my [the] ‘village’.

Unsurprisingly, I was forced to pick up a bit more Kannada and am proud to say that I have a vocabulary of about 20 words. Learning the word ‘toombah’ (very) was pretty helpful. I like to use it as often as possible and attach it to every other word I know to make it seem like I know more than I actually do. As a result, every one I meet thinks I am toombah enthusiastic.

After the first few days, I trusted the villages enough to leave my bag completely unattended with absolutely no apprehensions. Contents of bag include: laptop, kindle, camera, ipod, hotel advances in cash, passport etc. It took a while to relax about it, but I soon learned that theft is just not something to worry about in such welcoming villages. Also, when you walk into a room of skeptical women trying to figure you out (and your intentions), it’s best not to be clutching onto your belongings for dear life. The only way to evoke trust, is to trust!

CFAR and KHPT
(Somya, me, Manju, Asha and Chethan)

So, after a week of excessive eating, sweating, a flooded hotel room after rainstorms, no showering (a circumstantial choice) and lots of road trips, I have lived to tell the tale.