Looking back on this first week, it really has been a steep learning curve, both in terms of the research and India in general. Meeting up with Adi this weekend, it became painfully obvious that we probably amused lots of waiters, salespeople, and people at our firm this week with our complete lack of understanding. But we're settling into a routine pretty quickly. Every morning now there is a little girl who meets Yavor and I outside our apartment buildings to share our breakfast (I think most of Bangalore has figured out we're complete suckers at this point....especially the salespeople). And we've figured out which streets to walk down on the way to work that smell least like cow dung. And we've figured out how to differentiate between the Hindu and Muslim restaurants, and what and how to order at each.
More importantly, we're starting to figure the research out. In fact, with the help of the firm and their patience through many different revisions, we have a largely concrete schedule for the next two weeks. We start our interviews of both SHG (self help group) leaders and clients this Wednesday. We had hoped to start tomorrow, but SRFS is in the middle of a loan collection period, meaning that the loan officers aren't free to act as interpreters until the period is over. The extra time will probably be useful - we can firm up details and practice the interviews so we aren't going in cold. On Wednesday, we will start interviews in the Bangalore West region, starting with Attibele and Anekal. After that we will spend about a week in the Mysore region, doing interviews in Mysore, Udaygiri, and HD Kote, before meeting Adi and his sister to go ride and wash elephants at the elephant park outside Mysore. If all goes according to plan, we will be interviewing 3 groups with about 5 interviews in each group a day, which might be overambitious, but we can always adjust as we go. The loan officers will be interpreting as well as transporting us place to place on the back of their motorcycles. So as long as plans don't change, which they seem to do quite a bit at this point, we are ready to fully delve into the research.
But for now, I'm quite enjoying Adi's dismay at the Bangalore Royal Challengers beating the Chennai Super Kings (even though watching Dhoni lose is always sad) and making pizza with chicken tikka and paneer as well as lassi - not a bad end to the weekend in Bangalore.
More importantly, we're starting to figure the research out. In fact, with the help of the firm and their patience through many different revisions, we have a largely concrete schedule for the next two weeks. We start our interviews of both SHG (self help group) leaders and clients this Wednesday. We had hoped to start tomorrow, but SRFS is in the middle of a loan collection period, meaning that the loan officers aren't free to act as interpreters until the period is over. The extra time will probably be useful - we can firm up details and practice the interviews so we aren't going in cold. On Wednesday, we will start interviews in the Bangalore West region, starting with Attibele and Anekal. After that we will spend about a week in the Mysore region, doing interviews in Mysore, Udaygiri, and HD Kote, before meeting Adi and his sister to go ride and wash elephants at the elephant park outside Mysore. If all goes according to plan, we will be interviewing 3 groups with about 5 interviews in each group a day, which might be overambitious, but we can always adjust as we go. The loan officers will be interpreting as well as transporting us place to place on the back of their motorcycles. So as long as plans don't change, which they seem to do quite a bit at this point, we are ready to fully delve into the research.
But for now, I'm quite enjoying Adi's dismay at the Bangalore Royal Challengers beating the Chennai Super Kings (even though watching Dhoni lose is always sad) and making pizza with chicken tikka and paneer as well as lassi - not a bad end to the weekend in Bangalore.
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