Singing and dancing

This morning my RA and I went to see a couple of the community-based organizations to get some guidance on the project. The first one was a ways out, south on the M1 and then down the turnoff to Bunda for a ways. We got there and were met by a bunch of youth singing. A man took my bag, despite my insistence that I would really prefer to hang onto it, but he wanted to carry it for me into the meeting room. The meeting room had a desk with a chair behind it that was for me to sit in. The table was covered in health brochures, old and newish. At first it seemed that we'd be meeting with about 5 people, already more than expected, but then like 15 more adults filed in and sat on the benches along the wall, and about a million young people and children came in to sit on the floor. Instead of the audience of one or two I had expected going in, I now had a packed room. Or rather, my RA had a packed room because she had to do most of the explaining anyway. She totally could rebargain her pay after today, because she was my savior in that place.

The CBO leader gave this whole speech, translated by S to me, about the CBO and all the things it was trying to do, and all the things that were lacking like soccer balls and other things to occupy young people so they don't have sex, proper training for people at all levels of the organization, medical supplies, help to write good grants, etc. So they were glad to see me! I felt like, yeah, get ready to be disappointed because I just want to do a tiny study about radio. In all fairness, it's good to know about these things, even if I am not prepared to do anything now, because maybe in the future I will be in a place to say, hey, I know a bunch of people who could use some soccer balls or help writing a grant and get them the hookup.

S described the study and figured out the info we needed. She totally ruled today. After the meeting, we went outside and there was singing and dancing and a play. I recorded some of the singing and dancing with my camera. I'll try to post it, if I can, maybe on youtube. It was all cool, but definitely not what I had expected. The second meeting was much more what I planned for: a brief meeting with one person in an office. Either way, it seems that the groups will help us get folks to be in the study and help us find good places to do it, so rah.

We have three or four meetings tomorrow… I was exhausted after the two we had today, so I hope these are all lowkey.