Landed in New York, from Liberia, this morning. Thanks to Julian Jamison for blogging in my absence.
I spent most of my time in areas without mobile phone, let alone Internet. Actually, we spend a great deal of time doing the following:
Car broken down? Time to edit the survey. If time allows, pretest on passers by.
I am quite proud of my mobile field stations. Here is one from a previous breakdown:
Strangely, but fortunately, we only seem to break down on the few tarmac trunk lines.
This trip, the road up to the mining camps we visited is probably the worst I’ve been one. Here was one highlight:
This may or may not have contributed to the subsequent brake failure. Fortunately there is not much to hit.
I’ll blog more field notes when rested. Long flights combined with a series of increasingly terrible plane movies impairs my blogging.
6 Responses
Can definitely relate to the cars breaking down–mine broke down every other day during my conflict assessment in Liberia. And good to know I’m not the only one who uses time stuck on the road to collect data.
As to the subsequent post on election related violence–you don’t see politicians being able to manipulate youth, like they did a couple of years ago during the senatorial election in River Gee? Fortunately, the violence then was relatively contained, but…
What a great idea to pretest surveys when your car breaks down! I would say that it quite an efficient use of your time.
Liberia: I think you’re missing the point of the post…it was merely a way to show readers why Chris have been absent from blogging, and to share some pictures with everyone…
Geez, I hope that wasn’t the car given by takeshi. Looking forward to your posts regarding work done there. If you went, hope saclepea was fruitful and not cote d’ivoire panicked too much. Welcome back. Jah.
What’s the story with the pictures and the accompanying posts? Exotic romanticism? You went to this “strange land” where things do not work? Would it have hurt to take some time immediately upon landing back in your “comfortable, familiar surroundings” to give some credit to the wonderful friendly people you met in the field in rural Liberia who welcomed you to their humble surroundings. I don’t know what the purpose of your mission up-country Liberia was, but settling upon a jeep in bad running condition is simply poor judgment, as the pictures suggests. There is nothing spectacular or interesting about your pictures that most people in America do not already imagine Africa to be. Driving down highways in America, once sees breakdowns every day. Old, abandoned cars are nothing new either. There is no cellphone coverage for my cellphone where i currently live in America. Driving through post-war territory with no bridge? Hardly surprising either. People need to move away from tired depictions of “i have been to ‘poor miserable Africa.” Did you tell those “poor” kids at the bridge that you were going to post a picture of them on your blog in America for all the world to see? What is your definition of exploitation?
Hm. I don’t think you’ve been reading this blog very long.