Kenyan Feast!

Last Wednesday, Mama Eunice helped me throw a thank-you dinner for my research team. They have been working long hours to transcribe and translate interviews, and I wanted to celebrate the end of qualitative data collection. I asked Mama Eunice to cook, and she made amazing versions of almost every Kenyan food we typically eat. I am in Nairobi now, so I thought I'd show what the food is like.

This first picture has cooked cabbage (one of my favorites) and green grams - which are a lot like lentils.



Below are beef with broth and then mixed cooked bananas and potatoes. Next is chipote - fried round bread (another favorite...great with green grams!).

This is tilapia, fresh from Lake Victoria.








And here are the cooks - Mama Eunice and Vivian












More pictures are on Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/evepuffer

Final Focus Groups: Lessons Learned

We held our final focus groups for youth and parents today. Now my research team faces hours of transcribing and translating so I can read the actual responses. Even without having all of the data yet, though, I have learned a few lessons about doing this type of research:

1) Word travels quickly - If you give sodas and transport money after focus groups (and if they're fun), people start inviting their friends and neighbors to attend. Some people even come twice. So much for random selection...but it's nice that people want to come!

2) Hold on to your digital recorders! A purse was stolen from a research assistant yesterday with her pay for the week, her cell phone, and the recorder. It was really terrible for her, but someone spotted the digital recorder being used in the center of town. Apparently the person took it to the cell phone store asking how to use it. The Chiefs of the village found him, and the recorder was returned - luckily no data lost and no confidential data were released. When the recorder was returned, I pressed play and found 27 songs that had been recorded in a matter of hours. The Chiefs and the police are still searching for the person who stole the money...I will write an update if there's any progress.

3) If you see dark clouds, go home immediately. It is not fun to ride on a motorbike in the rain in the dark with lightning. After one bad experience, I just end the interviews early now and send everyone home!

4) Trees are great interview spots. I was very worried about privacy for our interviews before I arrived, but I quickly realized that people feel most comfortable around their homes and they know where to find private spaces that others will respect. Some of the best interview spots actually seem the most open and beautiful - big shady trees, rocks overlooking the lake.

Next time I write, I hope to have an update on what we are learning from the qualitative data!

Psychology Jokes at Dinner

A quick story for those of us in psychology...

One of my research assistants, Keziah, is also the daughter in the family that is hosting us. We don't tend to talk about work much at dinner, but yesterday, her mother mentioned that she had a headache. Keziah then started asking her mother question after question..."Tell me more about your headache....How do you feel about having a headache?...Give me an example of the last time you had a headache..." I quickly realized she was (good naturedly) making fun of our interview supervision earlier that day where I stressed the importance of probing for details and feelings. I was so excited - if you're making clinical interviewing jokes at dinner, I think that's a pretty good sign that you're getting it.

Data Collection - And Translation Continues

We've now had two days of interviewing and one afternoon of focus groups with youth and caregivers. Yesterday, I received final English transcripts from each member of the research team. They have been gathering data all week, but since everything is conducted in Dholuo, this was the first time I was able to read the interview responses. The youth and families are sharing interesting stories and experiences. After spending my time these first days primarily on logistics, it is exciting to read and begin to think about the ways we can use this information for intervention development.

The process of reading the transcripts certainly reminded me how important small differences in language can be - particularly when asking about mental health and relationships. One interview question is:

"Children often have different moods and emotions. Some are happy a lot, while other children feel sad or angry a lot of the time. Tell me about your child's mood and how he/she seems to feel most of the time."

The first time this was translated into Dholuo, we realized it actually said, "Tell me about when your child changes his or her mind." The second version asked specifically about mood swings. After a third translation yesterday, we were finally asking a general question about children's moods - a pretty important question in mental health research, but a concept that was not easily translated.

As I post this, I am trying to upload photos to Picasa...I'll let you know if it works. I've given up on Blogger - my modem is just not fast enough.