Minor Field Studies – MFS – Sida 12 – Malmö University's MFS students' blogs!

11 december, 2018 av ag2833 - 2 kommentarer

Progress

Hi again!

Time flies and it’s really hard to realize when it’s time for blogging!

Last time we wrote, we had just planned our first interviews, well now we’ve done them all! Our first interviews were last Tuesday, and we interviewed two gay men who both gave really interesting stories about their life! Our next two interviews were scheduled on Thursday, but in the middle of it all Emma got really sick, so we only got one interview that day.

Yesterday, Monday, we had our final two interviews and we’re happy to say that we have gotten some variation in our interviews, regarding informants. From the beginning we knew that it was hard to find different people of the LGBT-spectra, especially women, but yesterday we met a trans woman who could give us an insight into that life, which was very eye-opening. From these meetings with these amazing people we have really come to understand the difference in LGBTQ- rights and the issues that LGBTQ- people face here compared to back home.

Besides that, on Friday we are planning to move (AGAIN)! We realized that since we’re done with the interviews and don’t really need to be close to Gaya Dewata anymore, we could travel around Bali while writing! So that’s what we’re going to do! Firstly, we’re going to Ubud, and we hope to get a lot of nice pictures there to share with you all! As for now, you’ll have to manage without since we haven’t been taking any (good) pictures lately!

See ya!

Aron & Emma

9 december, 2018 av ag6672 - Inga kommentarer

One more week has passed

And a week goes so fast in Kampala, especially if you are sick, as I (Wictoria) have been. Now we are done with almost half of the interviews. Our plan is to do the rest of the interviews next week, but we dont know if this is possible yet. It’s not always so easy to find nurses to interview at the hospital because they have a lot to do. But the interviews are very interesting so all the struggle is worth it.

Besides, the interviews we also had the time to visit a handicraft market in Kampala. It was nice, but it’s the same things as everywhere else in East Africa. I love the crafts, but if you seen one shop – you’ve seen it all. We also had some fresh passion fruit juice at a café. That is to die for here. The best thing you can drink in Uganda!

I had to visit another hospital on Thursday, so now I been a patient as well. My stomach haven’t been so nice to me so I needed to visit a doctor. I got some antibiotics and worm medicine. The doctor said that here in Uganda everyone should take worm medication every 6 month because you get worms in the food you eat even though you are careful. So both me and Carl bought the medication and took like the cats we are. I feel a little bit better now when the antibiotics are over, but now entire fine. So, I have to evaluate tomorrow or Tuesday if I have to go back to the hospital if it’s not getting any better. Well, life outside of Sweden has it’s downsides aswell…

The plan for next week is just work and no fun. Maybe visit a tailor and make some new clothes, but our friend Halima is trying to find out if her friend can find time for us. This is the holiday season so eveyone makes new clothes so all the taylors are so busy!
Until next time!

Bye,

Wictoria and Carl

8 december, 2018 av ag6679 - 2 kommentarer

Mambo! (Hello!)

We have been busy righting our essay, so we felt that we did not have that much to wright about! We have finished our interviews and since then our life has been mainly about sleep, some training in the morning, food, writhing, food, sun, writing, food, sleep… repeat! But we are making very good progress! Actually, as I am now placed in my bed writing this post, Mirijam is finishing the last things on the essay! Tonight we will send in the first draft including all parts! Ofcourse, this is just the first draft, so we are sure there will be a lot more work to do.. But still! Hongera (Congratulation) to us!! 🙂

But actually we did something totally amazing today! We got the chance to visit a family living in a village just outside of Tanga City. It is a rather interesting family, as it consists of three wives and one husband. Together they have twelve kids!

It is allowed as part of the Islamic belief, that a man can have up to four wives. For us this is rather strange, even provoking, mainly since it is not allowed for a woman to do the same thing. Still, this is not Sweden, it is a totally different context, and thus, you can not judge the individuals in the same way as you might had in Sweden. It is not the person, it is the structures of the society. Rather it is important to be open and to discuss our thoughts and views.

As for this family it was the most amazing one! We met two of the wives, the husband, and almost all of the children. We spent the day playing with the kids and helping out with some cooking. We enjoyed a fantastic meal and took a walk though the village to visit the father of the husband. They were so friendly, honest and generous! We wished we could have stayed longer! Also because this is to experience the real Tanzania! In TICC we have had a very good stay, and it has been perfect when writing our essay, still it is far from the real Tanzania..

We are really longing to get out there and experience the country more 🙂

And: That is soon! On Monday we will leave TICC and head of to new adventures.. More about that next time 🙂

3 december, 2018 av ag2833 - 1 kommentar

Finally!

Halo!

What a great week and it’s only Monday! We’ve been very stressed out lately since none of our contacts answered us for a while and we were certain we would have to start moving on, finding new organizations and informants for our study… And even though one of them finally started contacting us again we thought they wanted to either get out of this or limit their efforts to the bare minimum… Until today!

So last week we got in contact with Arya, our contact from Gaya Dewata, an LGBTQ- activist group based here in Bali.
(You can read about them at: https://www.gayadewata.com/ )

We decided that we were going to go to them next Monday (the day I’m posting this). We didn’t have much hope for our visit, but we were determined to at least get something out of it. So we went there! When our taxi driver let us off at the address we had given him, we were confused. It was a very small street and no signs of there being an organization there. Finally, we went up to the nearest house and knocked on the door, we had come to the right place! We got to quickly meet Arya before we were seated to wait, since he still had some work to do. Then we got to meet an Australian volunteer who gave us a lot of useful information! He told us about other communities and organizations where we could get help, but maybe the best advice we received was; E-mailing is useless in Indonesia! If you want to contact someone, find them on social media!!

That explained a lot…!

So, after talking to the Aussie for a while we got to finally actually sit down with Arya. Before when we had discussed with him via WhatsApp, he had told us about how they might not have much time for us and that it would be difficult to get us what we wanted, such as helping us to find an interpreter, so we were definitely not hoping for much. Then it all just turned around! Firstly, we knew it would be hard to find informants part of the LGBTQ- community that were not only gay men, since the other parts of the community isn’t as open here, but Arya told us he would try to find a wider range of people so we got the bigger picture! Secondly, he found someone who can interpret for us and thirdly, we’re starting with the interviews TOMORROW already! (Arya invited us to come by every day for new interviews!)

It feels like we’ve gone from the bottom and right up to the top! Losing hope just to get all we could ever dream of!

Other than this, last week consisted of writing, writing, quite a lot of rain (and some sun too) and lastly more writing! Hopefully we’ll have more to tell you about when we get started with the interviews!

Bicara denganmu nanti!

2 december, 20182 december, 2018 av ag6672 - Inga kommentarer

We took a wrong turn

Hallo everyone, we are back.

We’ve had a little bit of a an adventure Fortsätt läsa ”We took a wrong turn”

1 december, 2018 av ag6679 - Inga kommentarer

Karibuni! (welcome to all of you)

The past week we’ve continued visiting dispensaries, observing nursing staff and also begun with our interviews 🙂 we’re doing good!! We have the best interpreter and we’re learning something new every day!

Nike before heading out to a dispensary 🙂

Our days usually starts around 6am. We rise and we train, it’s yoga, running or tabata each morning and then we enjoy a long chai ya asubuhi (breakfast). After breakfast we head out for the dispensaries in the rural areas. When we get there the nursing staff and the patients are welcoming us and speaks open about their work and their issues. We’ve met around 10 nursing staff and everyone sees their work as a mission in life. Their happy being at work all day, evening and night cause they love helping people. Even though they say it’s hard, they still finish every ”complaint” with a smile and says ”this is what I want to do”. The patients are often kids and they are often very sick. Some of the patiens don’t have clean water and there’s a lot of tests for Malaria since it’s very common in rural areas. It’s an experience seeing these people being calm and dealing with Malaria or other diseases as if they had a regular cold.

Things are often different from Sweden who’s a developed country, and even though it’s a non developed country, we have much to learn from Tanzania. The way they help each other, cheer for one and other, and speaks to each other is so humble, friendly and encouraging. It’s truly a joy to see all this happiness in one of the worlds poorest countries 🙂

This week we’ve visited an elderly home and joined a campaign about fungus. The elderly home was a joy to see even though the conditions often are difficult for the elders. They don’t have clean water, two elders share one room (10 squaremetres), and their food often consists of only Ugali. Ugali is maize flour. Even though the circumstances aren’t the best the elders are the happiest elders we’ve ever met, and both me and Nike has worked as assistant nurses at elderly homes in Sweden.

This is a block, containing six rooms, where the elders live.

At the elderly with danish nursing students having a circle with song, dancing and gymnastic for the elders. There were always kids from the neighbourhood hanging out with the elders <3

Typical Tanzanian food. It’s a sort of bread that’s called Chapati (look’s like a pancake), fried banana, beans in coconut sauce, fried sweet-potato, ugali (it’s the white thing that look’s like mashed potato), rice, deep-fried rice-ball, and a spinach-sallad. It’s awesome!!!

The campaign about fungus that we joined was a bus tour that travels to rural villages and Norwegian nurse-students dance and talks about fungus as part of a fun show for the villages. There were also Tanzanian students that made an excellent role-play/theatre about fungus to increase the knowledge in villages. It was a happy and cheerful campaign!

Six nursing students from Norway peforming a dance and a song about fungus in a rural village 🙂

Students from Tanzania performing a role-play about fungus!

Asante sana Tanga! We’re enjoying every second of every minute!

29 november, 2018 av ag0096 - 1 kommentar

Friends of Lake Turkana

As of now I have spent just over two weeks in Turkana County. My first two weeks were spent in Lodwar networking and getting both my head and my way around my study and my approach. As mentioned in my previous post I had a few meetings and todays post was going to introduce my meeting with the organisation Friends of Lake Turkana.

I was met by the executive director, Ikal, and her colleague Andrew. They were both happy to receive me and assist me in answering questions in regards to the current situation of extractives in the area. Friends of Lake Turkana are actively working in representation of the local communities as well as communicators to them from both national and local government and were therefore very well informed and had no hesitated answers to my questions.

I introduced my study and my aim from which we had discussions of how I could possibly move forward and how they could be of help. It led to contacts in the field in Lokichar, as well as being invited to come with one of their representatives to a meeting held Tuesday 27^th when Kenya Land Alliance was launching a report regarding land acquisition and community compensation. The meeting lasted for approximately 6hs, and was not only informative and contributed to material to my study, it was also a great opportunity for further networking.

Through connections received by Friends of Lake Turkana, that is on site in Lokichar where the oil fields are, I have now started my interviews with the local communities. I left Lodwar after the meeting on the 27^th and arrived in Lokichar in the afternoon. In the photos below you can the landscape we drove through to get to my new destination.

Next week I will write about my first time and experience in Lokichar and the plan for my coming weeks as I have had to rearrange and re-plan most of the rest of my trip due to new circumstances.

27 november, 201827 november, 2018 av Petronella - Inga kommentarer

Train traveling, interviews and transcribeboredom

Time is flying by! It is easy to forget to update! A lot has been going on.. I had my birthday and went out of town for some celebrations. I have managed to complete five interviews all of a sudden. I am also getting more and more comfortable going on the local trains even if the train as such is not a one of comfort. If you are unlucky with the timing in the mornings and evenings when all of Mumbai also want to go on the trains.. yeah.. well, then you do your best to even manage to get onboard. Put your bag in the front, tackle the door from the side, try to get hold of the doorhandle and squeez your way up. And don’t be afraid to use them elbows your mother gave you cos you need them. At least I am a little taller compared to the majority which is an advantage. This week however I didn’t even make it further in the train than just to stand by the door. And here in India the door does not close.. Exciting to say the least… I wanted to take a picture but then it would have been for the price of losing my phone. Anyways, I try to avoid peakhours as much as possible. It is just not worth the bruises and the sweating and the stares I get from looking like the lost tourist that I am. However, I feel pretty proud about managing this good haha!

Pictures from my trip to Gorai, outside of Mumbai, for my birthday

So as I said.. I have now conducted five interviews and have five left to go. It has been a little difficult to get hold of students and still trying to get the remaining interviews confirmed. I have transcribed two of them and it takes sooo much time. 50 min becomes 11 pages of text and about 4-5 hours of work. The other three interviews have been in hindi where I have had the help of an interpreter. So waiting for her to give me a more detailed translation for the interviews before I can transcribe them aswell. But part from this tedious transcribing all this is fun. To meet people and learn new things. I am so thankfull to be able to do all this!

Until next time!

Take care,

Petronella

22 november, 2018 av ag2833 - Inga kommentarer

Complications!

Hello again!

Second week in Bali!
Since the last post we have moved and started to work with the actual essay. Our new accommodation is nice and quiet with good work spaces but actually we are moving again! We’ve met and befriended a couple who have been here for 6 months and they recommended a hostel to us which would be cheaper! So we’re gonna try it and see if it’s good, if not we’ll just move back to the place we’re at now!

So about our work… Last week there were some miscommunication by e-mail between us and one of the organisations we’re in contact with. We thought we worked it out but now we haven’t heard from them for a while. They are the ones who are going to help us with an interpreter so we really don’t want to lose them. So, no interviews this week either. Meanwhile we’ve been working on the rest of the essay and gathered more information and we feel good about our process!

Other than this, our week has consisted of scooters, beaches and good company. So not too shabby!

Talk to you next week!
Aron and Emma

Everyday on our way to the hostel we pass Ganesha!

21 november, 2018 av ag6672 - 1 kommentar

We are in Uganda!

First week in Uganda is done. It was a somehow a rocky start for us. The hospital we were in contact with and thought we were gonna do our interviews at changed their minds so we had to start over. Our contact person took us to a hospital and we met the research officer there who gave us papers to fill in, asked us questions about our bachelor thesis and wanted her to give her our proposal. We left there a bit confused and asked our contact person about the proposal and she told us that it is our project plan. So that night we went home, filled in all the papers and changed some things in the project plan. We met the research officer some days later again at the hospital and gave her everything and at the 28th they going to do a ethical review of our project plan at the hospital. We are hopeful that after that we can start interviewing nurses!

We are also trying to get to know our new town Kampala. And get used to all the traffic. Because it is so much traffic and it is always a jam, no matter what time it is. If you have an appointment you need to get an Uber at least 1,5 hour in advance even though the distance isn’t even that far. We have gone with motorcycle taxis a couple of times (here it’s called boda or boda boda), but they drive very fast and so far there have not been any helmets involved for the passengers…

We went with our contact person and now also friend to the Zoo in Entebbe. It is not just a zoo, it is also a rescue and education center. The coolest animals was the wild monkey though that came to the zoo when it started to get cooler in the afternoon. They were so many and not at all afraid. We bought some cookies to have on the way home but on the way to the car a monkey with a baby saw them from far away and started to run towards Halima who held them! She started to scream and the monkey was persistent to get the cookies and Halima surrender fast! It was hilarious to watch.

Becase there are still time until we can start doing interviews we are going to Nairobi, Kenya. Then we are off for two nights and tree days in Masaai Mara and hopefully getting to see The Big Five!

Wictoria and Carl