As usual, after a visit to Tolikara I have much to say so will post in short chunks as I finish. And the pictures will slowly be uploading - though that often takes a while! This visit to Tolikara was to do focus group discussions with the churches about the health of mothers and children to do some assessment for the MCH project. I went with Rahel, Thoni, and Otinus - so no English translation all week!
Overall it went well. My prayer before leaving was not that our plans would work out, but that whatever happened, we would get good information and have good interactions with the churches. And it was good I did not pray for the plans to suceed, because as you can tell by the title...things did not quite go according to plan. But God did answer my prayer and we had many good interactions and got a lot of information.
FGD Day 1:
Our planned departure for Tolikara for the focus groups was Monday, however we did not leave Monday. Due to something or other, a road block half way, taxi’s weren’t leaving. All morning it was …maybe this afternoon, maybe tomorrow, we hope… But the next day (Tuesday morning), we were able to get a taxi that was loaded with people in the bed of the truck. Every time we go, it seems the road gets a little bumpier! Part way up we stopped at the “rest area”. It is a turn in the road by the river about half way to Karubaga and it seems the taxi’s all stop here.
Monday I made sure that Rahel or Thoni had communicated with the church since we wouldn’t make it for our scheduled visits. I couldn’t quite get whether they had made plans to change the schedule or if we would just skip the ones we missed and pick up with the original schedule. It turns out their plan was to follow the schedule, just a day later. I was a little hesitant, and if I had made the decision, would have just skipped the ones we missed and picked up with wherever we were on the schedule. I figured they communicated with whoever they spoke with about what we do though. It turns out – it really didn’t matter what we did – it was craziness any which way!
When we arrived Thoni took my surat jalan to the police station, but it took a while there. I thought that our new schedule was communicated with the church and we were running late. In my head I am thinking how awfully irresponsible it is to show up late to run your focus group, but was trying to remember where I was. And it didn’t turn out to be a problem.
When Thoni got back we walked with Pak Liwat, one of the church leaders, to Kolenggar Church, about a 20-30 min walk, one of our “in/near the city” churches. It was a beautiful walk and nice to see more than just the center of Karubaga. At a bend in the road Thoni said this is Kolenggar, but I didn’t see any buildings or people, just a gate. We climbed over, and up into a cluster of honai (traditional houses). At the top of the hill was a stony open area, and this was the church and where we had our first focus group discussion (FGD).
I had been worried about no one coming with the changed schedule, and being late…but I shouldn’t have worried about any of that. We sat down with Pak Liwat, and a grandmother brought us a big bowl of food. I felt bad about eating in front of the people and especially the children, but luckily the others just passed their bowls onto the children so I guess that was ok. There were a few people around and lots of kids, but then someone called/whistled/hollered – not quite sure how to describe the noise! And people started coming from every direction.
We had asked for about 15 mothers and 15 fathers, but when we started there were at least 30 mothers, probably the same number of fathers, and tons of children. And more continued to come. I would guess probably about 45 mothers by the end. This made for a difficult FGD! But Rahel, Thoni, and Otinus took it in stride. There were a few mothers who dominated the talking, but quite a few had input and many would nod in agreement.
Before and after they smiled, shook my hand, and said “Wa, Wa, Wa...” – a greeting and thank you and more in bahasa Lani. One older women sitting next to me kept showing me her skin that was dry and peeling, and there was another mother with a sick child nearby. I knew it would be hard coming and not doing anything medical/tangible, but it was even harder than I thought. At least at the end, we prayed with them and I hope soon we can implement the MCH projects and maybe still find a good way to do a clinic with the church.
Afterwards Rahel said they had misunderstood or there had been a miscommunication and they thought a doctor was coming. It just broke my heart! But after Thoni and Rahel explained our purpose, they weren’t upset that we didn’t have a doctor. When we left they followed us partway up the road singing, that brought me nearly to tears. There is a tradition involving bracelets here and over the weekend retreat we gave bracelets to bless and encourage each other. One of the girls walking back with us saw my bracelet and gave me hers, and then another did. I had to say sorry I only have one to give, but they said no problem. From that one bracelet blessing at the retreat, it opened a door to relate to some of the young girls. My blessing multiplied and I was encouraged.
When we arrived back at the church office where we stay, it was dinnertime. This first night we went out to eat at one of the little restaurants. There were some pastors at the office and Rahel was worried they expected us to cook and we didn’t have enough for that many people every meal.
I was worried about language being a problem, and though frustrating at times, it wasn’t bad. We were even able to joke around. When we got back from dinner we heard mice in the room. Rahel and I thought they were in the snack box, so Otinus was looking in the box. He jumped back to scare us – he got me:) They weren’t in the box, but in the walls, scurrying around. There was a whole in the ceiling where they could come out, so Otinus closed the mouse door by taping up the hole.
No comments:
Post a Comment