Week Five (June 6th- June 13th)
Experience
This week was very busy in regards to participating in the community more and research-wise! On June 7th we conducted focus groups in Kisinga which were overall very successful, on June 8th I went to the local craft fair and got handmade gifts for my family/friends back home, on June 9th I went to church, and on June 10th we conducted more focus group discussion in Kalenga. The craft fair was a very enjoyable time and I had some chicken, watched the dance performance, and walked around to the varying things being sold by individual vendors. I ended up with a handmade blanket, some bracelets, artwork, and cooking spoons. I also went to varying restaurants this week including Mama Iringa, an Italian-based restaurant, and Ruksana, an Indian-based restaurant. On Sunday, I went to church with everyone because Getruda wanted to introduce her guests to her church community, rightfully so. I am not religious and she goes to a Pentacoscal church so I was quite nervous and not sure how I’d feel about it, to say the least. Overall though I am very glad I went and immersing myself more into the cultural experience was crucial. The church service lasted approximately three hours (which is on the shorter side) and it was filled with lots of energy and emotions. People danced, sung, cried, and it was a lot more energy than the churches I have been to in the States. Also, since Tosamaganga District Hospital is a private, religious-based hospital, it is crucial that I understood more about the varying religions present in Tanzania. Religion is a big part of most Tanzanians lives and while the hospital is Catholic-based, understanding the role religion plays in health for many people is an important part.
Research
I have also gotten a lot done regarding my research and am starting to see a lot of trends that will need to be analyzed more in order to draw conclusions. For example, a common theme through interviews and informal discussions is that once people reach the point of being called wazee (essentially elders), pain is just caused by old age and this is a perception within older populations and younger. My observations in the hospital have been much more insightful as I feel I now know what to pay closer attention to. Thus far, I have conducted a total of fifteen interviews, with the help of Dr. Strong and Dr. Cogburn of course in case some patient needs more explanation in Swahili regarding my questions. I have completed five with medical personnel (1 anesthetist, 1 nurse, 2 pharmacists, and 1 doctor), four with patients, five with patient’s relatives, and one with a community member from Ifunda. I plan to get a lot more interviews done next week with patients and relatives and will focus on interviews with clinicians in my last two weeks since those can be conducted in English and I can do them by myself. I have only run into two research-related problems this past week. I lost one of my pictures for the rank ordering so I have not been able to do that with participants for some time now. I plan to go to a stationary shop this weekend to print out a new one and focus on accomplishing more next week. The other problem is that I have been getting behind on typing up my field notes. In the beginning, I was very good at coming home after the hospital and typing up more extensive notes for data-analysis when I return to the States. Unfortunately, it is easy to get behind on this so I haven’t done that in almost a week. However, I have been writing more detailed notes in my journal to try to make up for this fact so it will be easier to remember and type everything up when I do.