I arrived at the Save the Children office here in Kankan after a five hour drive on an excellent paved highway from Bamako, Mali. I will not be able to write very much, since I discovered that in this large city, there is not a functioning electrical infrastructure. Last evening we drove about in total darkness to a tiny restaurant. We ate by candle light. Of course, the people have battery power for limited lighting, and you may always discern the loud diesel-powered generators. The later we enjoyed both at the Save the Children office and our overnight residence.
We avoided the cost of a hotel by staying at a residence owned by Save the Children. Electricity stopped at 1AM, but I retired under my mosquito net long before. In the morning after breakfast, we arrived back at the Save the Children office. A very capable staff is here. After introductions to the program managers and administrative staff, we utilized a large conference room to begin the training in mobile data collection.
i prefer to place the PDA's in the hands of the training participants as soon as possible. As usual, they rapidly begin experimenting and exploring the devices. Then, the efforts centered on a very lively discussion of the target survey form that we would design and place onto the PDA's for our field testing tomorrow. The form is to collect data from households regarding Child Safety in regards to awareness and education in Child Trafficking.
I always emphasize, that before we build the form on the PDA, we must understand the content, structure, and logic of the form. This is essential, and once again, a couple of hours was spent to arrive at agreement of these characteristics of the form.
I need to upload this blog entry since the generator is about to turn off, and with it, the internet connection.
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