July 12. I. Focused Group Discussion

I opened my eyes in the new guesthouse. It was another beautiful morning. Though the place was still not familiar, I went jogging. Since there were no cars in the island, I did not have to worry if the car hit me. “Hello! Hello!” “Kumoi, Hello!” As always, children tore out of their home, and wave their hands to me.

Question: Is it sheep or goat? male or female?

I walked to the Sherbro Island ADP office and arrived at 8:30am to prepare for 9am in-depth interview (IDI) with person who is in charge of peripheral health unit (PHU) level. However, an interviewee did not show up. At the same time, focused group discussion (FGD) was supposed to be held at 9am with mothers and 10:30am with male partners, all of them were postponed to this afternoon. I got used to wait; meanwhile, it rained, sun came again, and steamy hot air made me suffocated. Our team went to Bonthe Government Hospital and saw group of stakeholders from various organizations were taking class for education of disabled. It was World Vision’s another project for disabled people. We introduced ourselves to them, and found my today’s interviewee, Patricia, so we made an appointment again at 2pm.

Joseph and I walked to Red Cross, the place where FGD would take place. On the way to that place, inhabitants greeted Joseph “Oh~~ Mr.Musa!” and kids enthusiastically waved hands and shouted “Hello!” to me. We were both popular here in this island! There was a nice hut right next to Red Cross, and we sat and enjoyed a cool breeze. If I could eat pizza here, would I be at the Pizza Hut? (I’m sorry! It was a terrible joke!) Participants were informed that new appointment time for FGD would be at 12pm, but only a few participants had arrived at that time. We waited for people again.  Mothers, male partners, and community health workers (CHWs) were coming one by one, and the whole group became so big at 1pm. Three different group were gathered all together, but I was glad to see that FGD has finally started. I wished I could have joined more to see what opinions they would exchange, but I had to come back to the office to conduct my IDI.

Project Manager, Joseph Musa, is explaining the purpose of FGD

The good thing for me was that I actually saw CHWs. I was always curious who CHWs are. I felt bad when I did a group work with DrPH students at school to write neonatal/maternal health in South Sudan. Since I had no working experience, I was not that helpful to contribute to finish our proposal. Even though CHWs were not the people who I interview, I would really like to meet them and ask anything. Thankfully, Joseph arranged the time for me to meet CHWs tomorrow! I am narrowing big gap between study in class and real work. I will meet 2 female CHWs and 2 male CHWs tomorrow at 2pm. (It would possibly delayed to a few hours later, but I am ok with that as long as I get the chance to chat with them.) I may have to think about my own questions for them, not from the standardized questionnaires from the IDI guide.